


Blue Walls

by BlueWonder



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Horror, M/M, Psychological Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-03
Updated: 2014-06-03
Packaged: 2018-02-03 07:21:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1736009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueWonder/pseuds/BlueWonder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They paint the walls blue for Cas's eyes and everything is perfect.<br/>Until everything isn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blue Walls

“What do you think?” Sam asks Dean. Sam’s standing with his head tilted upwards, a duffel underneath his arm. It’s the last one from the trunk.

“I love it.” Dean sits on the hood of the Impala with a beer and it’s something he picked up in town and he loves it, even if it is watered down and tastes like shit. He laughs as he leans back a bit, staring at the house that’s just become theirs. It’s two stories and painted tan with windows lining the top floor and a pair of honest-to-god glass doors and a front porch that has chairs and a white front door.

God, all it’s missing is the white fence, but hell if he’s going to be that cliché.

“Has it hit you yet?” Sam asks with a smile, teeth peeking out as he allows it to turn into a teasing grin. “That you’re going domestic? Settling down?” He laughs, heading into the house before Dean can hit him.

“Hey, you’re sticking around too! You agreed!” Dean shouts back without any venom, too satisfied that they got the house and they checked it out so no hauntings or anything. It’s a good solid house that he can live in and this is it. He sits back in the driveway and smiles, unable to stop really. This is something out of a djinn-induced fantasy. But he knows he’s awake and that makes it all the better.

Castiel walks out of the house, trailing his fingers along the walls as if he still can’t believe that the place is theirs. A small smile graces his face and it makes Dean sigh. If there’s one thing he can offer the angel, it’s home. Now that Heaven can no longer quite be called that, they can build one here. The angel walks up to him and leans against the car.

“This is strange.”

Dean laughs out loud, hard enough that he has to hold the beer out with his arm so it doesn’t spill on his baby. “Kill a mood, won’t you, Cas?”

Cas’s face scrunches up in confusion.

“I was merely saying that this felt strange after being on the road for so long,” Castiel observes casually, reaching back with his hand.

“Good strange or bad strange?” Dean grabs it with his free hand and he feels the buzz of contentment fill him as their fingers intertwine together. It’s the simple moments like these, simple moments that they could never afford to have previously, that always get him. Cas moves to sit next to him, to stare up at the house. Their house.

“Just strange.” Cas settles in next to Dean. It’s been years since he’s felt this at peace and now he is confronted with it in the form of a house. It’s strange.

“I’m sure you’ll get used to it,” Dean looks up, watching Sam move through one of the windows. He’s settling into one of the rooms facing the road. It should be too bad though, there’s no neighbors for a quarter mile or something. They’re fairly isolated, one of the reasons they bought the property. In case any of their work follows them home. It’s not like they can give up on hunting entirely.

“I think I will enjoy it.”

“You will,” Dean promises, looking back to Cas’s face with a grin on his face. “We all will.”

* * *

Dean makes dinner the first night and it reeks of domesticity so badly that Sam won’t stop making fun of him until the food comes. After that Sam’s silent, too busy eating.

After dinner, Sam goes to hide in his new room and takes along his laptop so Dean knows he won’t be surfacing from researching or reading or whatever it is Sams do for another few hours. Dean grabs Cas’s hand and they take a tour of the house, cataloguing every room they go through with growing excitement. Kitchen, living room, dining room, coat closet, hallway, bathroom.

There’s an actual fireplace in the living room and Dean feels like he’s going to float away. God, can he fall in love with a house?

Cas falls in love with architecture all over again, the sheer amount of the windows in the house making the place feel open. But he loves the hallway. One side is lined with rooms, the other with glass doors leading out into the backyard.

And leading into the dining room, there’s this coat closet. A damn coat closet that makes them both take off their coats and hang them up just because it’s there. They both laugh at each other, but they can’t stop themselves because it’s their coat closet and they can use it. And there’s a picture of the last owners hanging up across from the coat closet. They were a family of four. A photographer and his wife and their two children.

“A beautiful family,” Castiel says and Dean nods. The wife, Karen, had sold them the house, said they needed a change of scenery. Too bad. The kids are cute and Karen is beautiful and her husband is handsome even if he was starting to bald just a bit. The house really suited them with a rural happiness that was something out of dreams.

The photograph hangs perfectly straight on the blue walls of the hallway and Dean can't force himself to take it down. They don't have any pictures to replace it with anyways.

Not yet at least.

Dean tramps up the stairs really loudly just because he knows it’ll annoy Sam and Cas doesn’t have the heart to tell him no and Dean can’t stop smiling because he’s got stairs to tramp up really loudly and the other motel residents would shout if they’d ever been loud when they were kids and now there’s no one who can tell him no except Sam and half the time that doesn’t count. And they have three bedrooms up there which means they can turn one into a room for any hunters in the area and he and Cas have one all to themselves and it’s a dream come true because Dean never thought he’d live in a house like this again, not after the fire so completely destroyed any shred of home he could have ever imagined. And it’s not something they have to fix up completely. It’s already a home and it’s perfect for them and it’s perfect.

“We haven’t broken in the bed yet,” Dean finally says when they come to the master bedroom. He grins as he side-eyes the angel.

“No we haven’t.”

* * *

 

Sam bangs on their door sometime around midnight.

“Will you guys give it a rest?! I’m trying to sleep!”

* * *

 

Dean runs his hands along the walls as he comes downstairs to cook dinner. It’s mostly fallen to him now to provide food, mainly because Cas doesn’t eat and Sam won’t stop eating his cooking.

“What to make tonight?” he wonders, unable to stop running his hands along the blue walls, as if they’ll disappear if he’s not touching them. He still can’t believe they’re there. He should be out hunting right now, but he’s not and that’s awesome. He can be a little selfish for once and that is completely okay for now. He can hunt later.

And as he runs his hands along the paint, the wall clings to him, unwilling to give up on him. He turns to watch as his left hand sticks to the wall, the paint marking up the tips of his fingers like he’s bleeding blue, bleeding Castiel. The wall isn’t quite sticky, but it feels like something is holding him there, a firm presence gripping his hand and holding him against the wall.

He yanks his hand away, shaking his head. Talk about attachment issues.

“Sam, what do you want for dinner?” Dean shouts as he enters the kitchen, opening cabinets in search of anything interesting. He pulls out a cook book at random, flipping through pages. He has to pause a second when he notices his hand is still covered in flakes of blue paint, almost coating the tips of his fingers.

“Don’t care!” Sam shouts back from his position on the couch in the next room. He’s nose deep in research, looking for a job or a monster or maybe some girl in the area. The TV runs in the background, some ad for a local shop that’s selling furniture.

Dean sets down the cook book, moving to wash his hands in the sink. Stupid cheap paint flaking like a week after they painted it. He uses a bit too much soap and scrubs a bit harder than necessary, but he doesn’t care. He wants the paint off. He likes his hands clean when he cooks and he likes his food clean when he eats it. And he just got these cookbooks so he’s not staining them.

Dean hears a door open as Cas comes in, covered in dirt because he’s decided that the flowers outside need his attention. It makes Dean smile fondly because Cas is always so mystified and intrigued by the flowers when he talks about them and he loves the bees so much because “They’re bees, Dean! They weren’t meant to fly, but they do and they are some of God’s most beautiful creations. I don’t understand how people can dislike them.”

“Any progress on the garden?” Dean asks, looking over his shoulder casually. Cas nods with determination and it makes Dean smile all over again.

“I’ve finally gotten the pansies to start taking hold. Just in time for winter too. They’ll be blooming in full in a month or two hopefully.” Dean wipes his hands on a towel and smiles. Castiel blinks and he’s clean again and it makes Dean laugh because somehow an angel has fallen in love with him and it’s the strangest thing. How did he ever get so lucky?

“What should I make for dinner?” he asks, going back to his task of finding the right dinner now that his hands are clean of paint and there’s an angel in the kitchen with him who might actually help, unlike his brother.

“Burgers.”

“Will you be joining us then?” Dean looks up and something is smiling in Cas’s eyes. The angel disappears for a second before reappearing with hands full of groceries, all burger material. “Did you steal all that? Because it’s way too late for the store to be open.”

“I left money on the counter,” he answers, looking pointedly at Dean because it’s not like Dean hasn’t done worse and they both know it.

“So, joining us for dinner then? You never answered.” Dean walks towards him and takes the bags from his hands. Cas places an easy peck on his lips and moves to get cheese from the fridge.

“I wouldn’t miss it.”

* * *

Dean finds a job in construction, a solid ten to six job that leaves weekends free, his hands calloused, and his back muscled and strong. He comes home and Cas has dinner made or he makes dinner or sometimes Sam declares that they’re ordering pizza because he’s gonna get fat and die from eating all this food, even if most of it is surprisingly healthy.

He goes to bed tired and his angel takes care of him and he wakes up and Cas takes the edge of his tiredness and he is content even if the scenery doesn’t change that much. He likes waking up to the same four walls and the same angel and the same people. It’s nice to know that the people around him aren’t going to go off the map and die. He likes this.

Dean builds things, doesn’t hunt them now. He leaves that to Garth and Jodie and Charlie. And he can’t be happier.

* * *

“I’m going to get some food! Be back soon!” Sam shouts from inside. The keys jangle from his fingers noisily and fill the house with the reminder that Sam had to go out and get his own car, some stupid Buick that makes Dean disappointed and ashamed.

“What, mine ain’t good enough for ya?” Dean shouts back, smiling. He’s got an angel next to him and he’s under the Impala so he’s not that inclined to get up and make food anyways. He hasn’t had quality time with his baby in ages and he’s finally found a free day to spend with her so he’s not getting up anytime soon. And they haven’t really gone out in a while so he’s not too betrayed.

“Shut up!”

Dean hears the door open and close, nodding to himself when Sam is gone. Sure Dean has Cas, but Sam hasn’t found anyone yet and sometimes he worries about his brother being lonely. A bit of time out will be good for him.

“Hey, Cas, hand me a wrench?”

* * *

“Morning.” Dean blinks sleep from his eyes as the light streams in. The angel beside him smiles and Dean has to lie back and just be for a second because he’s content and this is more than he could ever ask for and half the time he thinks he doesn’t deserve it, but then Castiel smiles and he doesn’t care and he’s been waking up to this guy for months and every single time is just as great.

“Morning.” Thank God it’s Sunday because he couldn’t bear waking up any earlier and he’s got an entire day of lazy sex planned ahead. Screw Sam and his sensitivities. Oh yeah, his sasquatch brother… had he made it back last night?

“Hey, did Sam ever come back?” Dean asks after a second. The angel smiles while the hunter yawns and stretches, clearing sleep from his head. But the sun makes him lethargic and he doesn’t have to go to work so he’s okay with not moving for another seven or eight hours. It’s Sunday and he’s okay.

“No. He did not.”

“Bet he found a chick.” Dean smiles into his pillow, burrowing his head in further into the heat. Motels don’t have anything on his bed and hell if he’ll ever go back to sleeping on that shit. He’s got a nice bed and a nice house and a nice guy and a nice Sunday afternoon planned out. Day of rest and all that jazz. He could sleep for another couple days.

Castiel kisses his forehead, settling in next to him with a contented smile. Dean slings a lazy arm over his waist. “We don’t often have the house to ourselves.”

“No we don’t.”

“Wanna take advantage of that?”

The sun mirrors the warmth pooling in Dean’s stomach as he kisses Cas. “Only if you insist.” Cas kisses back, sucking on Dean’s lower lip and letting his fingers trail downwards. Dean clutches at Cas’s back, scraping fingernails along the skin, and Dean can feel the muscles cording under his fingers and the new blankets that smell so much like Cas. And he’s unraveling as Cas kisses him.

His boxers are gone and so are Cas’s and it’s just the feel of Cas’s skin on his, Cas’s lips on his skin and the taste of Castiel’s fingers against his tongue. It’s just the feel of Cas to ground him because everything else is floating away.

Cas Cas Cas. His angel. This is his fucking angel. He’s going to lose his mind because Cas’s mouth is everywhere and the sheets smell like him and he’s everywhere and the angel has never been so much in love and Dean feels like his heart might explode because an angel actually loves him and he can’t think. This is more a Heaven than anything he saw while he was up there. This is his own personal Heaven and nothing can tear him down.

“Fuck, Cas.”

The angel doesn’t stop and Dean ends up coming all over the sheets, but the angel comes right after him and Cas is there and he kisses Dean’s nose and says that everything’s okay and that makes everything worth it in the end. Even if he has to get up and shower. And wash the sheets eventually. But at least he has an angel to join him for all of it.

* * *

_“This is Sam’s phone. You know what to do. Leave your name and number at the beep.”_

BEEP.

_“Hey, it’s Dean. Give me a call when you get this?”_

_“Hey, it’s Dean again. Sam, seriously, pick up your damn phone and just call back, all right? She better be mind-blowingly hot for all the shit you’re putting me through!”_

_“Damn it, Sam! Pick up your phone! You know what, I’m gonna get Cas going really loudly when you get home tonight and I won’t stop and you’re going to have to listen to us all fucking night and that’s what you get for not calling. That’s what you get so I hope you have some really good headphones because I’m not stopping when you bang on our door. Oh no, I’ll make him get louder. And you’re gonna have to live with it because you couldn’t pick up your damn phone.”_

_“Sam, seriously man, jokes aside. Where are you?”_

_“Sam?”_

* * *

“Have you called Sam?” Dean is sitting on their bed, staring at his cellphone. Cas walks in and he hasn’t moved in a half hour and his voicemail keeps repeating that he has no new messages and his phone doesn’t ring and Sam hasn’t made any attempt to call them at all and where is he? “Dean?”

“He’s not picking up his phone.” Dean doesn’t look up, just puts the cellphone down. There’s a certain weariness in the way his shoulders slump and maybe it’s the scruff on his jaw and the bags under his eyes, but he seems so much older. He’s still in his clothes, not changed for bed, just staring at the floor.

“If he’s not back by tomorrow, we’ll call Bobby. It’ll be okay.” Cas kisses the top of Dean’s head as he takes off his shirt. Dean nods, getting up as he shucks off the rest of his clothes. “We’ll find him.”

Something bangs on the walls downstairs.

Dean turns in an instant, Cas moving to the door immediately. His angel blade has already fallen into his hand, a familiar protection that calms them both. They can face whatever is down there because they’re ready and whatever it is downstairs, they can deal with it because they’ve probably faced it before. Hell, they’ve faced the Devil before and won.

* * *

The knocking sounds from inside the coat closet and it reverberates throughout the entirety of the house and it makes Dean’s skin crawl. He wants to get away from it, away from the noise, and if there’s one thing he’s learned to trust, it’s his instincts. But this is something he can’t run from because this is his house and something is in the walls and Sam is gone and maybe this thing, whatever it is, knows where Sam is.

Dean puts his ear to the right of the banging.

“Dean!” Cas hisses, putting a hand on his arm, but Dean waves him away.

“I’m listening for anything moving!” Dean whispers. He wants to say more but something is moving under the skin of the walls and the paint. The banging thing is slithering around, blood flowing through the house’s veins. And then it’s silent and Dean loses his placement of the thing. He can’t hear it anymore and where did it go?

It bangs right where his ear is and the sound echoes through his head and everything is ringing as he reels backwards. He can see Cas trying to steady him, trying to hold him upright, but he can’t keep his feet under him and it’s all slipping away and why can’t he hear what Cas is saying? Everything is so quiet. And shit, he needs to puke and he can’t stand up straight and what the hell is going on?

“What?!” he shouts because Cas seems not to realize that he isn’t making any noise.

Cas brings his hand to Dean’s ear and pulls it back, his fingers wet with blood. The sound comes flooding back, the silence of the house as the banging quiets and Cas breathes. “Cas?”

“Your ear drum burst,” he analyzes clinically, but Dean can see the worry fixed in his eyes. The banging has got him worried and they should leave, but Sam might come back tonight and they have to wait for him and the banging won’t kill them at least. “I fixed it. I would advise against listening to the noise again.”

Dean just stands stunned as the banging echoes around from each corner of the room, penning them in with sound. “There’s nothing we can do tonight.” Nothing except get out of this room so the sound won’t burst his ear drums again.

Cas nods slowly. “We’ll look again in the morning.”

Dean pulls Cas upstairs, away from the banging. They lie on their bed together and listen to the banging downstairs. It can’t come upstairs it seems, but it’s circling downstairs and they can only hope Sam doesn’t come home to  that.

Somewhere around two, Dean finally pulls Cas into his arms and just starts whispering, “Everything will be okay,” over and over again and neither of them are sure who it’s for because Dean is shaking badly and what if it’s Sam in the house, but it can’t be because Sam is gone. Dean loses his voice somewhere around four and just buries his nose in Cas’s hair.

He doesn’t sleep.

* * *

“I will check for him.”

Dean nods and Cas disappears and Dean is left with only a few seconds of silence because angels fly everywhere and they’re faster than anything he’s ever known.

Cas reappears and Dean immediately knows that they’re screwed because Cas’s face radiates a stone cold gravity that he hasn’t seen since the early days. Cas doesn’t even have to say anything. He leans back heavily against the kitchen counter and tilts his head back. His eyes are closed and he’s breathing in the air like he can’t get enough, like he’s tired and there isn’t enough oxygen in the world.

But he’s an angel so that can’t be possible. He can’t be tired and he can’t need to breathe and his trench coat is singed and it’s like he’s run through Hell itself, like he had to life Sam from Hell. Perhaps he has, combed the depths of Heaven and Hell and Purgatory looking for Sam and perhaps there’s nothing. Or perhaps Sam is okay and Cas is just tired.

But angels can’t be tired.

“Well?” Dean finally asks, unable to stop himself. His voice is scratchy from whispering to Cas for so long last night, but he’s healed of most of it and that’s okay. Dean takes a step forward, leaning close to Cas if only to take his weight.

“I could not find him.” Cas sounds unsure for once and Dean has to blink back his confusion.

“Where did you search?!” Dean asks desperately, helping Cas to sit down at the table because oh my God, the angel is actually tired and he does need to sit and Dean hasn’t seen him like this since way back when they were hunting Lucifer and this is terrifying because Cas is an angel. Cas is an angel and that’s the one constant he has. And if he can’t count on that then he doesn’t know what will happen.

“Everywhere I have access to. The entirety of Earth and Heaven,” Cas admits lowly and he can’t look at Dean at all because he’s failed and he can’t find Sam and Dean is counting on him, but Sam isn’t there and how is he supposed to say this? How can he realistically tell Dean that his brother isn’t anywhere?

“And he’s not…” Dean trails off uncertainly and Cas can see his hands tightening around his cellphone instinctively. His hands shakes just a bit and Dean is biting down on his lip to say anymore because it’s obvious he’s terrified, even if he won’t allow himself to say so in front of Cas.

“No.” Cas shuts down Dean’s hope.

“Oh.”

“I will continue to look for him, if you would like.” He looks up at Dean and the hunter is nodding to himself and to Cas.

“Yeah. That would be great.” Dean sounds dazed and he knows that. But the fact that Sam is gone and Cas can’t find him is still processing and he doesn’t know how to find Sam now or what to do. “Cas?” The angel looks up at him and Dean has to lean down and grip his trench coat to convince himself that at least he’s here.

“Thank you.”

“I am sorry, Dean.” Cas gently raises a hand to Dean’s wrist, maneuvering Dean’s hands from his jacket into his own hands. Cas stands and pulls Dean close, pulling him somewhere safe and Dean can feel that he is safe within his angel’s arms and that Cas is still there and that is what matters at the moment.

“It’s okay.”

Castiel kisses his cheek and disappears beneath his hands.

* * *

“Dean?”

“Bobby…I… I’ve got a problem.” Dean’s voice wavers a little bit as he clutches the phone and he feels like he’s stuck in Carthage all over again, except this time it’s not Jo, it’s Sam. Oh God, it’s his Sam. It’s his little brother.

“What kind of problem?” Bobby begins hesitantly, voice crackling over the phone nervously because he hasn’t heard Dean like this in years and Dean isn’t even hunting for now. He’s taking a break and what does that mean if he’s calling in the morning and he can’t even keep his voice steady?

“Sam.”

“What’s he done now?” Dean doesn’t answer immediately, swallowing nervously. He still can’t think exactly without seeing Sam behind his eyes and it leaves him breathless when he remembers that Sam is gone and he’s not here on Earth or in Heaven which leaves Hell and Purgatory and Dean doesn’t know how he got there or how to get him out. “Dean!” Bobby’s shout yanks him out of his head. “What did Sam do?”

“I can’t… he’s gone, Bobby. He’s just gone.” Dean runs a hand down his face, trying to wipe away the image of Sam for the moment. He can’t concentrate with that thought.

“What do you mean, gone?”

“His car hasn’t left the driveway and neither has the Impala and Cas can’t find him anywhere. Anywhere! He’s gone and the house may be haunted but we haven’t had time to deal with it yet and Cas should be able to find him, but he can’t,” it all spills out in a rush and Dean can feel the fear really grip him for the first time because Cas can’t find him and Sam is gone. And oh yeah, there’s banging on the walls that’s way too loud to be an animal or something.

“I’ll come down tomorrow,” Bobby explains easily, keeping his voice steady, as if he can sense how panicked Dean is getting and what is going on in the house. It’s as if he knows because Bobby always does somehow. “Expect me sometime in the afternoon. I’ll help you find Sam and then we’ll take care of whatever is haunting the house. I thought you said it wasn’t haunted.”

“It isn’t. We checked. And Cas looked for him, Bobby,” Dean insists, pushing forward and letting his panic overtake him for a few seconds. “Cas looked. He’s not here on Earth. Not in Heaven. He’s gone.” His breathing picks up just a bit and he can tell that his hands are shaking, and he’s got to stay focused, but Sam is gone and he’s not anywhere and he’s gone.

“We’ll find him, Dean,” Bobby reassures and it cuts through the panic easily because Bobby has always been able to do that somehow. Bobby can always make him think rationally and thank God for that. “We’ll even summon that old bastard Crowley if we have to. Everything will be okay.”

“Okay,” Dean repeats, pinching the bridge of his nose and nodding because that’s all that he really can do at the moment. Cas is still out looking for Sam and Dean just has to wait here and he can’t do anything, damn it.

“Good, now go focus on Sam. See if you can find his phone, if it’s possible.” It’s not. The GPS says it somewhere in the house and Cas had looked and he hadn’t been able to find that either. It’s right here at home and they still can’t find it, but Dean doesn’t dare interrupt Bobby. “If not, go over conversations, look for any clues. You know him, Dean. You can find him.”

“Thanks, Bobby.”

“No problem, ya idjit.”

Bobby hangs up and Dean can only stare at his phone for a couple seconds before he moves. He’ll try to find Sam’s phone again, the old-fashioned way, see if it shows up anywhere and when Cas gets back they’ll set up a game plan or something because Dean can’t afford to stop moving anymore. He needs to keep pushing forward and find Sam.

And he will find Sam.

He always does.

* * *

It’s almost ten when the banging starts again.

Dean grabs the axe he brought inside. It’s old and the handle is smooth from years of chopping wood out back. There’s a fireplace in the living room and it’s a classic one that requires good old wood and has a chimney and everything.

“I’m opening up the walls. I’m gonna see whatever is in there.” Cas doesn’t say anything, but Dean can see the way he tenses at the thought of hurting the house. “Don’t worry. I’ll repave it, and we’ll go back to Home Depot or whatever and get the right color and paint it. It’ll be okay.” Castiel nods, albeit hesitantly because it’s still their house and it’s still going to get an axe in the walls. Dean hefts the axe anyways and rests it on his shoulder. It’s nothing in comparison to the lifting and the work he does at the construction site and it’s nothing compared to the weighty glances that Cas won’t stop sending him.

It’s a wall in the bathroom.

The banging starts and stops but it stays there and doesn’t move and Dean corners it and has it right where he wants it. “Alright, I’m breaking down the wall!” Dean shouts. Cas stands outside the door, unable to fit inside without risking injury. Not that Dean could hurt him, but he’d feel guilty and Cas would feel bad and the make-up sex would be awful.

The axe bites through the wall and Dean has to pull hard to dislodge it. The poor blue paint chips and covers his fingers and the axe and Dean doesn’t have time to wash it off. He pulls back and sinks and throws his weight forward as he smashes the axe into the wall again. And Dean keeps going and going.

Until he breaks through.

The banging is still right there, right in the hole, but there’s nothing there and the sound still echoes all around him like it’s still in the walls, but it’s coming from the hole. And the wall is so thin that nothing should be able to fit in their anyways.

The wall is too thin and whatever is in there, is still banging around and this has done nothing and Sam is still gone and now they have to worry about whatever this is and the house might really be haunted and he doesn’t have time for this. He just wants to find Sam and fix everything and go back to this life that they’ve been building for themselves. Is that too much to ask for?

“I don’t think that this is going to help,” Cas murmurs, looking in through the hole. He peers in and the wall itself is maybe a foot think, and they can see the beams keeping the roof above their head, but the wall wouldn’t have been able to let anything in. “Whatever it is, it’s not going to be deterred by a single axe.”

“We’ll talk to Bobby tomorrow, ask what this is. Because it’s obviously still in the house.” Dean turns and the banging has moved behind him, towards the kitchen.

He doesn’t sleep that night either.

* * *

“Yeah, I’m sorry I forgot to call in yesterday, but my brother is missing and all.” Dean rubs the back of his neck as he talks over the phone, sighing. He should have known it would have been too good to be true. He can’t live a normal life. He’s sure to get fired and he can’t afford to care at the moment because he’s got to find Sam.

“That’s fine. Take a couple of days. But after a week, if you’re not back, I’m looking for someone else. I like you, Dean, but you’re too new.” The voice creaks along the other end of the conversation and Dean can only nod in surprise. At least he still has a job. That’s what’s important. He can take time off to search for Sam and he’ll fine him by the end of the week because after that, he’s out of the job.

And if Sam isn’t back after that, then he’ll keep searching. Screw his job.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can.” Dean hangs up the phone and can only sit there for a second before he has to dive into research again. He doesn’t have time to waist and work can wait.

Finding Sam is more important.

* * *

The hole is gone.

Dean spends twenty minutes staring at where the hole should be and it’s just gone. The house has already duct taped itself back together somehow and Dean is happy because now his house is hole again and he doesn’t have to do it, but the witch is doing it and that makes it worse.

“Should have just torn down an entire wall,” he murmurs, running his fingers along the paint, along the edges of where the hole had been. The blue paint flecks on his hand as he has to go wash it off, but the hole is gone and somehow that’s worse than him actually putting a hole in the wall in the first place.

* * *

“I’m going to get some groceries, Dean,” Cas tells him, putting a hand on shoulder so Dean can resurface from his research. Castiel becomes painfully aware of how tired Dean is when it takes him several seconds to look up. His reaction time is so slow. He’s just so exhausted and he won’t stop pushing himself and he hasn’t slept in the last seventy-two hours. “Would you like anything?” Cas cards a hand through Dean’s hair and the hunter just shakes his head, looking back towards his laptop without pause.

“I’m okay, Cas.” His voice is worn and cracks in his throat and Cas uses what Grace he can to take the edge off the tired ache that fills Dean’s back from being hunched over for so long. Dean makes a noise of acknowledgement and Castiel smiles tiredly. Bobby should be here in a couple of hours at least so he can help make sure that whatever’s taken Sam won’t kill Dean second hand. Bobby will be able to help.

“I’ll be back soon. I promise.” Cas kisses the top of Dean’s head, burying his nose in his hair for a second. Dean smells like the house, warm and inviting and home. Dean smells like home.

“Be careful.” If Cas hadn’t been standing there, he wouldn’t have heard the words. He drops a hand to intertwine with Dean’s, running his thumb along the back of Dean’s hand. He draws warding sigils in invisible ink, wills whatever Grace remains within him to give them power. He can’t lose Dean. He can’t. Not now.

“Come get food with me. Take a break. You’re working yourself ragged.” Dean shakes his head again and squeezes Cas’s hand. “All right then. I won’t be gone long.”

Cas moves to the closet to grab his coat. The winter is coming on fast and Bobby said it might snow so he’s being careful. He wants to blend in and just be a regular person for the moment. He doesn’t want to be an angel at the moment unless his Grace can point him towards Sam. This is the closest he’s ever gotten to it, the closest he’s ever gotten to humanity. It’s rather peaceful when it comes down to it.

Cas opens the door to the closet and reaches in for his trench coat with a certain fondness. He hasn’t quite been able to get rid of it, even if it’s getting old and dirty and Dean keeps teasing him about it. He’s about to close the door when the banging comes from inside the closet.

Banging banging banging despite the fact the walls are too thin to hide anything. He knows. Dean put an axe through the wall last night and it had terrified him because Dean had looked so angry when he had torn down the wall and it was like he’d lost him for a second and he could see what would have happened if Michael had finally gotten him to say yes.

The banging draws him back. The banging is back in the closet in front of him.

It’s pounding on the walls in the back. Cas can hear Dean groaning from the other room in frustration because he can’t hunt noise if there’s no source. He’s out of his depth and he doesn’t realize that the noise is right by Cas. He doesn’t know. Frozen, Castiel is unable to move as the banging continues, pounding out desperate heartbeats and S.O.S. signals according to Dean. It’s looking for help, whatever it is.

“Please. Let me out.”

The sound rasps out and for a second Cas thinks he’s the one who says it, but he couldn’t have. Someone else said it and that means someone is close and that Cas isn’t alone. But it’s the first time he’s ever heard a voice accompany the noise. And that voice sounds so familiar. So familiar. Cas tears out coats, shoving the rest aside.

There’s something in the back of the closet and it’s spread out and there’s a leg hanging out towards him and is that who thinks it is because it can’t be. No. No, he’s gone and he can’t be there, but he’s sitting in the back of the closet like he’s dead and buried himself in the coats.

“Sam!”

Sam is leaning against the back wall, eyelids half-closed. He’s in the same clothes as he was two days ago, but he’s clean and he’s alive and here and he’s alive. He’s not missing. Not anymore. His hand is still propped against the wall, knuckles bloody from where he’s been rapping and pounding against the walls.

Banging against the wall. Oh God, it had been Sam. Dean had almost put an axe through Sam!

Sam’s gaunt and unshaven and it’s obvious he hasn’t slept at all and that he can’t understand most of what’s happening around him. He’s just sitting there as Cas stares at him and he barely registers anything.

“Sam, it’s me!” Cas moves forward, shoving aside jackets so he can get into the coat closet, get closer to Sam because Sam is alive and there. And Sam is alive and Cas can’t sense anything wrong with him even and Sam is alive and Dean will be so happy to know that Sam is okay.

“Cas?” His voice is almost gone, rasping against his dry throat. He opens his eyes a little wider, leans forward to see the angel. “Cas, is that you?” He blinks tiredly, his hands shaking a bit as he shivers in the cold air.

“Dean!” Cas shouts, kneeling down in front of Sam. He already has a hand on Sam’s forehead, going in with Grace and trying to heal, but… it’s stuttering to a halt and he can’t. He can’t. Why can’t he heal?! He can take the edge off, but Sam’s freezing and he can’t help that and why can’t he?!

Sam’s just starting to shake, finally starting because he’s finally heating up now that he’s outside the walls. He’s been too cold to shake, too cold to move. He’s freezing under Cas’s hands. Freezing like he’s been sleeping outside instead of banging on their walls at midnight.

“Cas, what’s wrong?!” Dean runs into the hallway, looking for Cas.

“I found Sam,” he whispers and he has to scoot backwards and get out of the closet because it’s too close around him and his Grace won’t respond right and he can’t heal Sam when should be able to and something isn’t right and how has Sam gotten back. None of it makes sense and the coat closet just stands there.

“Sam?!” Dean nearly dives into the coat closet and Cas moves away quickly so he can figure out what’s wrong. “Oh my God, Sam.” He can’t stop the small smile that comes to his face though, because Dean has found Sam and the world is right again within the world of Dean Winchester and that makes the burden a little bit lighter sometimes. He can make it if he has Dean next to him and now Sam is back and that’s good too.

Dean’s hands stop trembling when he finally grips his younger brother and can feel that he’s alive and there. Because Sam is alive and he’s cold, but he’s alive and that’s better than what he feared.

* * *

"We should leave, Dean," Sam finally says after a half hour of interrogation. Dean has been grilling him non-stop on what happened in the closet and he’s tired and he doesn’t want to think about the coat closet that’s like hell and all he wants to do is leave, but he already knows it’s not going to end well. He can see it in Dean’s face that it’s not going to end well.

"We need to figure out what this is and get rid of it, Sam,” Dean argues back and Sam grits his teeth in response and Dean can just feel teenage rebellious Sam getting ready to make the comeback of a century. “We can't just leave. This is our job."

“Dean, I’m with your brother on this one,” Bobby chimes in and Dean sends him back a glare. He puts up his hands in surrender, huffing indignantly. “I’m just being the voice of reason. You know this ain’t natural, boy.”

"It swallowed me, Dean. The house _swallowed_ me,” Sam repeats, trying not to cough because he’s trying to make a point and he’s tired of being sick and he wants them to take him seriously. But he’s still shaking from the lingering cold and he feels like crawling into a bed and sleeping for three days straight. “I walked into the coat closet and I turned around and the door was gone."

"Sammy," Dean starts, shaking his head a little bit because Sam was in there for days and he can’t help but doubt it just a little when Sam is tired and starts spitting bull about the house eating him. Dean has hunted hundreds of things, but not once has he hunted a house.

"I'm not crazy, Dean!” Sam shouts and he tries to slam down his hand on the table but he’s weak and it all just seems like it’s too much. Dean’s eyes jump open and he immediately leans forward, but Sam pulls his hand back like Dean is poison and keeps going. “I walked around for days trying to find my way out! It was pitch black and I couldn’t see anything! I slammed against the walls for hours and none of them would give! Whatever it was that caused this, didn't want to let me out!" _The house didn’t want to let me out._ He wants to keep going, but Dean is looking at him like he’s crazy and he has to keel over in a coughing fit that makes his shoulders shake.

"Then how did you get out?" Bobby asks and he whacks Sam once on the back to get the air flowing again.

"I...I don't know.” Sam tries to keep the coughing down, to keep the air in his lungs so he can finally talk because if there’s one thing he’ll do, it’ll be expose this house for all the fucked up that it is. “I passed out, knocked on the walls and there was Cas."

"It's gotta be witches," Bobby mutters under his breath. Castiel brings another blanket he’s found upstairs and wraps it around Sam’s shoulders. Sam clutches at it and looks away because he’s tired and he wants to sleep but something is in the house and his brother and Bobby and Cas won’t listen to him and he hates sounding crazy.

"There's something in there too, Dean,” Sam finally adds and he feels all the eyes wrap around him because he’s spitting out something new. “Something was in there with me."

"What? Like a familiar or something else entirely?" Dean asks and he’s leaning over the table to get a better grasp on what’s going on because it may not have been banging on the walls, but it’s certainly running around in them and he can’t just let that happen because this is their house. And hell if the witches will take that from him.

"I didn't… I didn’t actually see it. But I felt it," Sam admits and his head drops and for once he’s not sure of whether he’s completely sane, but he has to be because he felt the thing in there, breathing on him all the time and growling always just out of sight. The damn thing hadn’t left him alone and had chased him for days and it has to be somewhere in the walls because Sam had heard it and it’s there. It’s there. He knows it.

"You were pretty out of it, Sam," the eldest hunter reminds, putting a calloused hand on Sam’s shoulder. Sam shrugs it off violently, glaring at the floor.

"There was something there!" he insists. He looks up and Dean lifts his hands in surrender and sits back in his chair. Cas sits down by him and Dean sends a glance Cas’s way.

"All right, Sam. If you say so."

* * *

The door to the coat closet stays open after that.

“If the door closes, you’re gone,” Sam warns as he shivers underneath his blanket. He still hasn’t been able to get warm even though it’s been hours since they pulled him out and he’s still eying the closet with distrust, even though they have no idea how it works, how witches are able to transport people. Or if witches are able to transport people at all.

And Cas has been so standoffish and Dean doesn’t know what’s wrong or how to fix it. Cas just keeps giving noncommittal answers and if that doesn’t make him a Winchester, then Dean doesn’t what does. Still, Cas pops down to the store and finds a camera, even though the store is closed.

Dean sets up the camera to film the closet at all times, to see if anything comes in or out, specifically this thing that’s got Sam so worked up. The familiar or whatever it is that stalked him through the walls. It may be near impossible, but Sam says he saw it and Dean trusts him, so Dean will give him the benefit of the doubt.

Sam’s earned that much at least.

* * *

_“Did you turn it on?” Dean’s face consumes most of the shot as he peers into the lens._

_“It should be on. Here let me check. Dude, get away from the lens. All I can see is your ugly face.” Sam’s voice comes from behind the camera. His fingers slide along the side, creating a gentle scratching noise that filters into the background of the shot._

_“You’re just mad because I’m the beautiful one and you spent the last three days trapped in Nowhere Land.” Dean smiles and runs a hand through his hair as he steps back, revealing the coat closet. It sits in the middle of the picture. The white door is open, thrown wide. There are six coats hung up in a row._

_“So we just leave it then?” Sam asks, stepping into the shot. He has a blue blanket thrown around his shoulders, pulled tightly. He shakes ever so slightly, shivering._

_“Yeah, we’ll check it at night, see if anything moves.” Dean looks up at the edges of the coat closet._

_“You idjits, get over here! I heard you had good food, Dean!” Bobby calls. The two brothers leave the shot._

_The shadows move with the sun and coats hang there unobtrusively._

_Nothing happens._

* * *

Dean pulls off his socks as he goes to get into bed. He’s tired and he can’t wait to sleep and he’ll sleep soundly now that Sam is back.

“Something’s happened to my Grace.” Dean turns to see Cas standing on his side of the bed. He’s facing Dean and his eyes are piercing and flat and desperate. Cas’s hands are held together stiffly and he looks so uncomfortable standing there  and it’s obvious he’s nervous because there’s something wrong with his Grace and that means there’s something wrong with him.

“What’s happened?!” Dean exclaims and makes a start towards Cas. Cas looks away and Dean stops because he’s being closed out.

“I don’t know. I tried to heal Sam and I couldn’t. I can’t for some reason.” Cas’s face twists with something foreign and Dean can’t exactly place what emotion it is, even if he is the more human of the couple.

“Were you cut off from Heaven?” Dean suggests, even if it’s a painful thought because as much as he loves having this be the angel’s home, he knows that Heaven is always Cas’s home too and he can’t stand the thought of Cas being locked out again.

“No. I think it’s the house.”

“Oh.” Dean stops and he feels like he’s been thrown under a bus because Cas’s Grace is being screwed up by the house and the witches. Cas is suffering. And that’s not okay. “Do you want to leave?”

“No,” Cas shoots back and maybe it’s just a tad too fast because he starts backtracking immediately, making motions with his hands. “I like it here, Dean. I like it here and I don’t want to leave and you like it here and this is my home now. I don’t want to leave.”

“Then we won’t. Not yet.”

Dean crawls into bed and Cas joins him and Dean kisses him on the forehead and holds him and tells him that everything will be okay over and over until he loses his voice around two.

Then he just mouths the words until he falls asleep.

* * *

“Sam, what is going on here?” The words float by Dean’s ears as he grates cheese for homemade tacos. He turns his head, but he hasn’t heard Cas or Sam in ages and the conversation has no context. The last he’d heard from them, they were upstairs researching the local lore for anything related to witches. It hadn’t been going well.

“I don’t know,” Sam says back and this time Dean turns around completely because Sam must be right behind him. But the kitchen is empty. “I think we should leave.”

“But we just got settled in. Dean likes it here! I like it here!” Cas hisses as Dean walks out into the hallway.

“Sam? Cas?” he calls. No one is downstairs. No one answers.

“The house ate me, Cas!” Sam responds to Cas like he can’t hear Dean and for all Dean knows, he can’t. They could be locked off within the walls of the house together, talking and leaving Dean on the outside. “I spent days wandering around and you heard me through the walls. This place is screwing with your Grace too! This isn’t natural and he knows it. This is the kind of shit that gets people killed! I’m not going to stay here and be the victim.”

Dean pauses. “Damn it, Sam.” Of course Sam wants to leave. Part of Dean wants to leave too because Cas’s Grace is zipping away and Dean likes Cas as an angel or a human, but this is wrong. But part of Dean wants to stay because this is home and he can’t just give up his home with the blue walls that match Cas’s eyes.

“Then we’ll hunt it, whatever is causing this. It’s only been two days since you got back,” Cas fires right back and he sounds desperate to stay. For the first time in a long while, he has a home and he has family and now Sam is asking him to just give it up and maybe it makes Dean selfish, but he’s glad he has Cas on his side. Dean has to go back to cooking because he can’t let himself hope that they’ll stay and that they’ll keep their home. As a Winchester, he’s never been that lucky, so why should he be now?

“Cas, you didn’t find any hex bags,” Sam pleads. Dean looks up once he has his hands back working on grating the cheese. There’s a window right in front of him. It’s dark and all that he can see is his own reflection staring back at him. What will happen when the witch takes that as well and all Dean sees is broken bits of boy? They’ll find her before that happens.

“Please,” Cas begs and Dean can imagine him gripping at Sam’s arm in an effort to make him understand. Those two voices, hidden among the spaces in the walls, calling to him. “We can’t leave. Not yet.”

Dean looks down at his hands while he works. Shit, there’s more blue paint flecked across his hands. This is ridiculous. It’s been weeks since they painted and it’s still coming off all over his hands and he can’t cook like this.

Sam comes downstairs and finds Dean washing his hands under scalding water. Dean sees him enter out of the corner of his eyes. Sam still keeps a blanket wrapped around his shoulders and his color hasn’t quite returned yet and the rings under his eyes are blacker than the depths of the house. His shoulders are hunched over so he looks so much smaller than he should and it worries Dean to see his brother like this.

“Hey, were you just talking to Cas?” Dean asks as he turns off the water. He shakes his hands to get excess water off, moving for a hand towel as Sam watches him. He can see the guilt on Sam’s face at getting caught. “I’m not mad that you want to leave. There is something wrong with this house. And we’ll hunt it, just like Cas said. Just… where were you guys? I thought you were upstairs.”

“We were. Wait, how did you know what Cas said?” Sam begins hesitantly, stopping for a second to cough into his arm. He’s getting sicker. He stares at Dean cautiously, sitting on the counter next to where Dean works. His expression changes when he sees how red Dean’s hands have gotten under the steaming water. “Dean, how hot was that water?”

“Hot enough. The paint on the walls is cheap, keeps flecking on my hands,” he waves away Sam’s prying eyes, moving back to finish with the cheese. “But you were upstairs? It sounded like you were right behind me. I heard everything you said.” Dean swallows quietly, focusing on his work intently to keep his mind off the growing list of strange occurrences. What kind of a witch are they dealing with?

“Dude, it looks like you burned yourself.” Sam reaches for his hands to get a closer look.

“Stop with the hands! They’re fine and you’re sick!” Dean slaps his hands away, more irritated than anything. They aren’t burned. So maybe they’re a bit red, but at least the paint is finally gone. “But you were upstairs! I was here. It sounded like you were right behind me.”

Sam’s face falls and he pulls his blanket a little tighter around him.

“Dean, we should leave,” Sam reasons, putting a hand in front of Dean’s face. Dean ignores him, finishing the cheese. He wraps up what’s left of it and moves for the refrigerator.

“We hunt the witch first.” He can’t look at Sam because Sam will have that pained pitying look on his face and it’ll read into sadness over the fact that they never had a home and Dean is so attached to this one and of course it has to be cursed because they’re Winchesters. He can’t look at Sam and see that. This is all he has. He can’t lose it. And neither can Cas.

“Dean, this is sounding way too powerful to be a witch.”

“Go wash up,” Dean bites out, closing down the subject. Winchester evasion. It runs in the family. “Tacos for dinner. I’ll cut extra tomatoes for you.”

Sam doesn’t say a word as he leaves.

* * *

_"Let's paint the walls, make them a little friendlier," Cas suggests as they sit at the table. They’re eating pasta, something which Dean whipped up on a whim. They've only been there a couple days so the dishes are all but nonexistent, but he’d managed to scrounge a pot from the neighbors and a couple plates as well._

_“But they’re fine the way they are!” Sam protests. The idea of work is unappetizing and boring. But the militant white of the walls is something Dean can't stand. He misses the bright colors of the open sky and the white makes his skin crawl and his feet itch to leave. And he isn’t leaving because this is home now. So they’ll have to paint the walls._

_Sam gives in after only a few minutes of bickering with him. Dean insists that it's necessary to make the house theirs. And Sam has no idea of what home is so he just lets himself be bulldozed over by Dean’s enthusiasm._

_"Come on, Sam! It'll be fun!" Dean’s eyes narrow and he points his fork at Sam accusatorily. “You against a little hard work?” Castiel smiles to himself, sitting back through the argument. It’s without venom so he need not intervene._

_"What color then?" Sam asks in defeat. He throws up his hand, settling back in his seat as he shoves another bite of food in his mouth. He tries not to let Dean see how good the food is. He can’t let his head get that big. "You pick, Dean. You're the one so intent on painting."_

_"We'll paint them blue for your eyes, Cas. It was your suggestion after all." Dean sends a smile his way and Sam sighs at the stupidity of these two men in love. Cas blushes, but can’t stop the smile that breaks out across his face._

_“God, save me,” Sam moans, grabbing his food. “I’m gonna eat in the other room while you have eye sex. Take it upstairs if you really want to get it on.” Sam beats a hasty retreat after that, laughing as Dean pelts the back of his hair with his penne._

_“Sam!” Dean shouts as Sam escapes._

_They paint the walls blue for Cas's eyes and everything is perfect. The paint sticks to Castiel’s fingers for days and Dean makes sure to kiss the spots every time they pass each other in the halls. Dean runs his fingers across the walls whenever he cans and he feels like he is getting lost in Cas's eyes every time._

_And it’s perfect._

* * *

“You will call me if anything else happens with this witch?” It comes out as a question, but Bobby means it as an order and Dean knows it. Dean stands on the porch of the house, watching Bobby walk out to his car. Bobby’s finally loaded up with all the books he needs, all the documents so he can keep looking into the house from his end.

“Don’t worry. We’ll have this bitch gone before the week’s out. You know us, Bobby. We’ve got this.” Dean acts calmer than he feels, his eyes flashing from Bobby’s beat up old junker to Sam. Or at least where Sam should be. Because Sam isn’t there.

He’s upstairs, still sick. And Cas can’t heal him.

“You take care of Sam too,” Bobby reminds, leaning back against the withered paint of his old Mustang. Dean nods in affirmation. It’s already being taken care of.

“Cas is up there right now.”

“And what’s he doing?” Bobby asks, giving Dean a pointed look because Cas can’t heal and that means that something is taking his Grace and that means he’s about useless when it comes to any extra healing for Sam. Cas is just bumming around upstairs, unable to really help Sam when he really needs it. And it’s terrifying them all, but Cas wants to stay.

“Hey, Cas can do a lot,” Dean bites back defensively. He take a step forward.

“He can’t do a darned thing at the moment and you know it.”

“Bobby,” he growls out in warning, feeling his fists and his jaw clench. Bobby puts up his hands surrender.

“I know. You’re just like your old man. You’ve got a hot temper and you don’t want to hear it. But you’re smarter than him, Dean, so you listen to me!” Bobby shouts, getting up to his full height. He doesn’t move, but he glares hard enough at Dean that he doesn’t have to. “You know that something is wrong with Cas. You know something is wrong!” Bobby’s eyes narrow further in accusation and Dean isn’t quite sure whether Bobby is staring at him or the house. Because the house and the witches certainly know something is wrong.

“I know, Bobby. I know.” Dean runs a hand through his hair and puts a hand against the wall of the house. He steadies himself and he can feel the house breathing beneath his fingers. He can hear the faintest whispers of Cas and Sam talking upstairs, their conversation reaching down to him again.

“Keep an eye on him too.” Bobby’s voice gentles a bit and Dean nods.

“I will.”

Bobby gets in his car and drives away and Dean watches him go the entire way. He stands outside for a few minutes afterwards, watching the empty street. He can see their nearest neighbor down a long ways, house surrounded by fence. Cas hadn’t wanted that. He’d wanted something open and inviting and now look what had invited itself into their house.

Dean walks inside to make lunch and listen to Cas and Sam talk. He’ll hear them no matter where he is.

* * *

Bobby leaves.

Cas goes back to gardening.

Dean returns to construction.

Sam watches the House.

* * *

Dean keeps running into things, furniture that he could have sworn was just a couple inches in the other direction. But his hips and his knees have enough bruises that he knows his entire sense of location in the house is gone and someone keeps moving the furniture around. That is the only answer.

“Alright, who keeps moving the couch? I’ve run into the damn thing enough times now.” Dean is annoyed, spearing through a piece of steak as he talks.

“Wait, I thought it was you who kept moving it!” Sam’s better now, even if he’s still tired all the time. But at least he doesn’t have that damn blanket around his shoulders all the time and he didn’t move the furniture so then who did?

Both brothers turn their eyes to Cas.

“I haven’t moved it either.”

Later that night, Dean pulls out a tape measure. “It’s exactly forty-six inches to that wall and twenty-seven to the other. I’ll measure again tomorrow and we’ll see how far it’s moved.

They walk in the next morning and Dean swears that the couch has moved at least a few inches to the right and he measures it and it’s exactly forty-six inches to that wall and twenty-seven to the other and apparently nothing has moved. Sam and Cas measure it themselves but nothing is different from last night and they spend the entire day running into the side of the couch.

The next day they measure it and Dean is sure that it’s moved because his hip is sporting a new bruise and it bugs him all day at work but it’s still exactly forty-six inches to that wall and twenty-seven to the other. And nothing changes.

A week later, Dean’s and Cas’s bed upstairs moves nearly a foot to the left and they start taking measurements on that. It’s always the exact same.

The kitchen grows by at least a foot after two months of shifting. It’s the first time a room has shifted and they find themselves with extra room between the oven and the stove and it looks all wrong and distorted. Sam is sure it’s just a foot, but Dean thinks it’s more likely two because there’s also a space behind the trashcan where there wasn’t before and the patio out back seems infinitely smaller. They start measuring that as well.

The kitchen shrinks by three feet at least after that and everything is cramped and uncomfortable and they knock elbows when they try to move around. They measure and everything is the same and Dean is sure that the house is trying to drive them all around crazy and maybe the walls aren’t shifting at all and they’re all losing their minds.

The house keeps shifting and it’s exactly forty-six inches to that wall and twenty-seven to the other every single time.

* * *

The photograph of the former family tilts slightly when it’s never done so before. Dean fixes it absentmindedly, pushing it back into place and continues on his way, putting away the tape measure because apparently it’s useless now and no matter what they measure, everything will always read the same.

It’s tilted when he comes back and Dean fixes it again. And again. And again.

Cas notices it and so does Sam, but they don’t say anything and Dean is sure they think him crazy, but the picture is tilted and he doesn’t care. He buys a separate video camera and films it because nothing else in the house tilts except for this one photo and there’s got to be some reason for it. There has to be.

* * *

_The photo hangs in the middle of the picture._

_It is straight._

_Nothing happens._

* * *

Dean looks up from the camera.

The photograph is tilted.

“But when?” he starts, unable to tear his eyes away from the photograph that lies at an angle.

Dean rewinds the film. The camera shuts down and Dean scrambles for more batteries. The damn thing won’t turn on until he hits the side of the camera. Only after that does the image finally return.

* * *

_The photo hangs in the middle of the picture._

_It is tilted._

_Nothing happens._

* * *

Dean is positive he is falling and that the gravity around him is shifting and the witch is responsible for this because the picture is just adjusting for the new degree of gravity and the house is sucking them all in one way or another. The picture won’t stop tilting and it’s throwing him off balance because he’s not sure which way is down anymore.

They are all stuck in a perpetual state of falling and there’s going to be nowhere to land but inside the house and it will consume them all.

Dean’s eyes trace the walls and nothing else shifts except the photo is still tilted and he can’t look at it anymore. He gives up on trying to fix the photograph anymore.

Dean turns off the camera and stows it away. He doesn’t pull it out again.

* * *

Dean walks downstairs slowly, unsure of what to make for dinner, if he even ends up making dinner. His head’s been in the clouds lately and he hasn’t been able to even start making anything without it ending up burned in front of him. He can’t think. Everything feels like it’s falling around him, stuck in the instant before it hits the ground and it’s keeping him off balance.

He reaches for the wall, runs his fingers across the blue paint with a small smile. The house, even hijacked by a witch, is still the best home he’s ever had.

“What do you want for dinner, Sam?” Dean calls, feeling his feet halt as he stares at his hand. It can’t move. It’s stuck to the wall. Something is holding his hand, something in the wall. Shit!

“You up for barbequing?”

“Sam!” Dean shouts, yanking his hand backwards. But the walls are strong and this one keeps pulling his hand forward and it’s sinking into the wall. The house is trying to take him just like it took Sam and he can’t handle that. Dean braces a foot against the wall, gripping at his wrist with his other hand, trying to gain any leverage he can to pull out his hand. The wall only has a grip on his hand. He’s okay. He’s okay. He can get out of this. He can.

Cas reaches the base of the stairs first, still covered in dirt from gardening and he’s staring at Dean with wide blue eyes that match the wall all too well and Cas is watching him through the walls, through all angles. He’s falling right into Castiel’s eyes. And Cas is watching the wall grip Dean and pull him through.

Dean’s hand finally comes free.

And he’s falling down the stairs, off balance as he crashes away from the wall.

“Dean!” Cas shouts as Dean finally collides with the ground. “Dean!”

Dean lies on the floor, dazed and confused and the room won’t stop falling to pieces around him and the walls and Castiel won’t stop watching him. And the house wants to eat him and he can swear that the shadows on the angel’s face are making teeth and they’re going to swallow the angel whole. Won’t even need to chew. Castiel is going to get eaten by the house and Dean will get eaten right after.

“What happened?!” Sam’s here now, little brother with shadows like a noose around his neck. Except the shadows growl loud in his ear and Sam is scared of the shadows. Dean will have to teach him not to be scared of shadows, just like when he was small. The shadows can’t hurt him. It’s what’s in the shadows that you have to be afraid and there’s a lot hidden in the shadows growling at Sam. The house has hidden loads in there. Sam should be scared.

“Something was trying to pull him through the wall. He pulled himself out, but fell down the stairs,” Castiel explains, but Dean’s head is floating and all the words come through his cotton ball wings. Dean’s always wanted to see his wings. Does he even have wings now that his Grace is disappearing? Hell, it’s been so long, he might not even have Grace anymore.

“Is he hurt?” Sam asks quickly, already kneeling beside his brother. His hands move along the side of Dean’s arms, searching for any signs of broken bones.

“It doesn’t look like it, but he did hit his head.”

“Okay. Concussion, maybe? Not too bad then,” Sam assures, looking into Dean’s eyes to see if anything is wrong with the pupils. At least Dean is breathing and there’s no sign of blood so he hasn’t hurt himself too badly. They can deal with a concussion.

“The shadows are gonna eat me, Castiel,” Dean moans.

“Just a concussion,” Sam repeats, trying to explain away what Dean is saying even if he can’t help but think the same thing.

“The walls are watching me and everything is falling to pieces and the rooms are shifting even if the tape measure says they’re the same size every single damn time. The house wants to eat me, Castiel,” Dean vaguely motions with his hands, but he’s not quite coordinated enough to do anything but wave them around. “The house wants me and it’s using you and it’s using Sam to get to me. It wants to eat me. Something’s wrong with this house, Castiel,” he admits, eyes wide and terrified, “but I don’t want to leave.”

“I know, Dean. I know.”

Dean can see the picture of Karen and her family. It’s tilted and he can’t help but feel like he’s still falling.

* * *

Dean’s head aches and he can’t sleep. He lies awake in his bed for hours at a time because looking at words and loud sounds make his head hurt and he can’t walk with stumbling everywhere and hitting the walls and the walls still cling to him and the house still wants to eat him. So he can’t read or research and he can’t walk around in the house or wash off the damn blue paint on his hands. And that leaves him invalid in a bed when he wants to be up and helping and he hates this.

“You’re sure you can’t help?” he hears Sam ask Cas somewhere downstairs. The conversations keep floating back up to him, even when they’re not supposed to. Freaking shadows keep sending him messages.

“I’ve tried, Sam. There is something in the house that is limiting my power. I’m all but useless, I’m afraid.” Cas sounds so frightfully human and he can’t heal, but at least he stays awake and doesn’t sleep and he can still fly at least. He’s still an angel. They have that. The house is taking away everything, but the house still hasn’t taken away Cas.

“All right,” Sam agrees, if only a little hesitant.

Dean can’t wait to find the witches, can’t wait to take Cas’s Grace back from them.

Cas comes upstairs and sits with him and runs his hands through Dean’s hair. He whispers quietly to him and brings up research so he can sit next to Dean as he works.

“Hey, Cas.” Dean has his head buried in his pillow, comfortable enough to take the edge off the pounding migraine behind his eyes. The blinds are all closed and the light can barely filter in through them. It’s dark enough that Dean can open his eyes again, can see how Cas looks up at him with a small smile.

“Yeah, Dean?” He rests back against the bed, his hair a little more mussed than normal.

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

* * *

“Hey, boys. Heard your life went to shit without me.” Bobby tugs a duffel and couple of books into the house with him. He looks up and stares at the ceiling with a grimace but walks in anyways.

“Bobby, good to see ya.” Dean stands at the door in greeting and he’s glad because it’s the first time he’s been out of his bed in a week and he can finally walk around again without help. And he can watch TV again without his head pounding too badly and Bobby is here and that makes it all the better and it makes him think that maybe the house won’t take everything.

He vaguely wonders if that makes him foolish.

“I think I might have a lead on your witches,” Bobby begins as soon as he gets in the house. He waves around one of the books he brought in and Dean sits down by him. He can walk, sure, but he’s not completely stable on his feet. “I pulled some archives from your guys’ local library and was looking through them. The signs point towards a coven that lived a couple miles from here. There were all sorts of ritualistic killing done here at the turn of the century.” Bobby pulls out maps and places them on the kitchen table and there’s red circles and annotations that mark where their movements were and Dean hasn’t smiled this widely in years. “They would come out into the woods to do their ceremonies and that was right around here.” Bobby doesn’t stop talking as Sam and Cas come to join them and Dean can only smile as Bobby keeps going.

“Alright, so what does that mean we’re looking at? Witches that are still alive or ghosts?” Sam stands at the table next to them and Dean is so glad that he’s there and he’s helping and maybe they can take back control of their lives and that’s great.

“Either. If they died, they could have latched onto the property, but I doubt so. I think they’re still alive.” Bobby frowns, taking his hat off for a second so he can run a hand through his hair. “You guys got anything to drink?” Sam nods with his head and Bobby walks towards the fridge.

“Man, I hate witches,” Dean groans out and maybe the sun’s a bit too bright on his eyes but he’s got a headache. “This is our home, man.”

“We’ll get it back. Promise, Dean,” Sam puts a hand on Dean’s shoulder and Dean is too tired to move it. Or maybe he likes it a bit. He’s not telling.

* * *

_The coat closet lays positioned in the middle of the picture. The door is flung open, only a few coats left inside. They lay there simply, the light reflecting on them innocently._

_Sam walks past the camera initially. He looks at the coats, rifling through them with one of his hands. Keeping the other behind him, he grips at the frame of the door._

_“Hey, Dean, did you grab my coat?” Sam shouts, obscuring the closet as he stands in front of it. He’s still peaking in, moving coats around with his right hand to see if it’s hidden. He always makes sure to keep one hand outside the door, anchored on the frame._

_“No!” Dean calls back from the other room. “Did you lose it or something?”_

_“No, I know where it is!” Sam turns around, walking towards the camera. Kneeling down, he looks into the lens of the camera like it can give him the answers. “Did you see what took it?” he asks, walking around to the back of the tripod. The picture shifts as he picks up the camera, moving to face the ground. “Did you see what monster’s hiding in this House?”_

_He angles it down at his feet, various noises come from off screen as he messes with the camera, trying to get it to work. The shadows creep around Sam’s ankles slowly, crawling over his feet. “Stupid camera, how do you get this thing to play?” The screen goes black._

_“Oh come on, you damn thing!” Sam hisses. There’s a noise as he hits the camera, shaking the entire thing. The picture returns, Sam’s feet illuminated by the light streaming in through a window._

_“Can’t even get the camera to work now,” he growls, turning back to the closet. “This House fucks up everything.”_

_“Sam, you okay down there?” Bobby shouts down from upstairs. There’s sounds of him moving, books being shoved across the room as he rouses himself into action. “Sam?” The floors creak in warning as Bobby moves towards the stairs. The sounds of Dean stirring in the other room can be heard as well._

_“I’m fine,” Sam calls, but the sounds of movement continue._

_Sam takes a step towards the jackets, running his hand through the various ones. He cards his other hand through his hair, shaking his head. The audio distorts and Sam’s voice booms. “Don’t worry about me, Bobby! I’m fine! I promise.”_

_Sam’s hands shake as he keeps moving through the jackets. He coughs, turning his head to the side so he won’t cough on the jackets._

_He stops._

_He turns back to the door when he realizes he’s walked fully into the closet. His hands are both in the jackets and he hasn’t anchored himself. His eyes widen, his entire posture tensing as he lunges forward towards the hallway all at once._

_“N-”_

_The door shuts._

_“Sam?!” Bobby comes down the stairs, thumping loudly. “Sam!” He runs into the picture, turning around as he looks for Sam. “Sam, what happened to you?!”_

_His head snaps to the door._

_“Oh shit. Sam!” He yanks the door open in one easy movement, obscuring the closet with his shoulders. His head turns everyway as he shifts through the jackets with one hand. The other stays outside, anchoring him to the outside in case the door decides to shut on him too. He’s frantic in his search. “Goddamnit!” He pounds a hand against the wall. “Dean!”_

_“What’s wrong?!” Dean shouts from the other room. There’s noise as he gets up, drops a book or some other large object._

_“Sam is gone.” Bobby moves from the closet and walks out of the shot. The closet door remains open, Sam’s coat hung in the middle, right between two of Dean’s old jackets._

_“What do you mean, he’s gone?!” Dean yells._

_“The door to the closet was closed,” Bobby explains, exasperate and breathing hard, but keeping his tone monotone like he’s trying not to blow up completely. “Sam isn’t in there. Sam is gone. The witch took him again.”_

_“You’re shitting me, Bobby. You’re…No!”_

_“Dean, I wish I was.”_

_The video freezes, stalling._

_“Dean, I Dean, I Dean, I Dean, I Dean, I Dean, I Dean, I Dean, I Dean, I Dean, I Dean, I Dean, I Dean, I Dean, I Dean, I wish I was. Sam must have gotten sucked in by the witch again. The door was closed when I got here so she must have him now.”_

_“You’ve got to be lying, Bobby. We’ll call Cas. Cas can find him. You can’t-”_

_Something bangs on the walls upstairs._

_Dean sobs._

* * *

Sam disappears again. The coat closet’s door is closed.

Dean blames himself. Even if he won’t say it, Cas and Bobby know. Dean doesn’t sleep and calls into work and loses his job because it’s so close after he got his concussion, but he doesn’t care. He works and works and works and doesn’t sleep and forgets to offer to make dinner and they end up ordering pizza with the wrong toppings because Dean keeps saying he doesn’t want any and then no one eats any and Dean blames himself for everything.

The first bang sounds within the wall after seven hours and twelve minutes of silence. It starts to the right of the coat closet and moves along the stairwell and the sound reverberates through the entire house and Sam is making it somehow. Sam is there and if they can only reach him, but the house has him.

Dean has the axe in hand before they can stop him. He hacks through the first wall along the side of the stairs and the paint chips and coats his hand and the blade of the axe, but the wall gives away too quickly and there’s nothing but empty space behind it. Sam isn’t there. Dean leans back against the other wall and stares into the space and there’s nothing.

“What the hell was that?!” Bobby shouts, reaching for the axe. Dean sends him a glare and tightens his grip on the weapon. Bobby’s hand stops.

“I’m finding Sam,” he hisses out, his eyes moving, roving along the walls as he waits for any sign of Sam to appear. “He’s somewhere in these walls. So if we can trace where he is, then we can break him out. We’ve got nothing else to go on, Bobby!” Dean grips the axe a little bit tighter and this is his last lifeline to Sam.

“You’re tearing down the damn house!”

“It’s doing the same to us!”

There’s more banging within the dining room and Dean doesn’t pause before he tears down the stairs, past Bobby and past Cas who waits at the foot of the stairs patiently because this has happened before. “Sam!” The axe bites into the wall, tearing through the blue paint, tearing through the very foundations of the house. “Sam!”

And he can hear Sam’s voice on the other side, begging for Dean to find him, to let him out.

_“Let me out! Let me out! Please! Dean?! Dean are you there?! Cas?! Bobby?!”_

His little brother is begging him for help and he’ll tear down this entire house piece by piece by fucking piece if that’s what it takes to get to him.

And then it goes silent and Dean is left sagging against a broken wall and blue paint that flecks on his hands and his axe and his clothes. Sam is gone and he’s gasping for air. “Dean!” Bobby shouts. He’s standing at the mouth of the dining room, watching Dean with fire in his eyes and whiskey in his blood. “Calm down, Jack Torrance!”

“I can’t! I’ve got to find Sam and Cas is losing his mojo and this is all I have left and it’s eating everything!” Dean shouts and he can tell that he’s got his father’s temper, but he doesn’t care because he’s trying to save lives and that’s what Winchesters do and Bobby can think he’s crazy all he wants, but he will get Sam out. But the house is just unraveling everything and he doesn’t know what to do in the face of this. He doesn’t know what to do and this is all he can do and it’s terrifying to be so helpless.

“Dean, you’ve got to-”

There’s banging in the living room, by the television. Dean exchanges glances with Bobby before he takes off. He doesn’t have time to wait for his head to catch up. He has to find Sam and he has to find the witches that are doing this because they’ve got a hold of the house and he can’t lose this house, not like everything else.

Dean puts the axe through the wall next to the television. There’s a fireplace to his right and he doesn’t even want to think about Sam trapped behind there when it’s lit up. He doesn’t want to think about Sam burning alive like that. He just has to get Sam out. He puts the axe through it again, chopping through the wall like the fireman he always wanted to be.

Wouldn’t his dad be proud now? He can’t build a home. Can’t protect anyone. Can’t protect Cas. Can’t even protect Sam!

“Dean, please.”

Dean stops when Castiel puts a hand on his shoulder. His entire frame freezes up at once and Cas is pulling his arm down, lowering the axe.

“Please stop. You won’t find Sam like this.”

He drops the axe.

* * *

Dean sits down in silence. The axe lies by the fire place and no one moves to put anywhere else. “What archives do you have for me to sift through?” His voice is dead and Castiel makes sure to sit by him as he moves a box of old records on the house in front of him.

Dean sorts through all the paperwork quietly and none of it matters in the end, but it gives Dean something to do and Cas brushes his knee every chance he gets and sometimes he can make Dean smile and that’s all that matters. Dean is smiling sort of and it takes his mind off of Sam so it’s been good for something.

Sam bangs on the wall upstairs and Dean stiffens, but he doesn’t move and he keeps going through the paperwork. Cas rubs Dean’s knee with his hand, calming quiet little gestures that are supposed to help. Dean grabs his hand and they sit there together as Bobby tramps around upstairs looking for the source of the sound even though nothing will help.

Castiel kisses the top of his head and the banging moves throughout the upstairs and Dean can’t stop hearing his brother calling for help. “I’m right here, Dean,” Cas whispers, squeezing Dean’s hand because he misses Sam, but Dean is lost.

“I know.”

They spend the rest of the afternoon researching and sometime in there, the wall repairs itself and Sam begs them for help and they can’t do anything. He just keeps banging and banging on the walls and the rest of them just keep listening and listening. And every once in a while they can hear Sam’s voice break through, hoarse cries pleading for help and for mercy that make Dean look back at the axe which still remains by the fire place.

But they can’t do anything.

And then Sam goes silent.

* * *

_The coat closet sits in the center of the picture, eight coats hanging up. Castiel’s trench coat, Castiel’s suit jacket, Dean’s green coat, Bobby’s blue jacket still covered in dirt, Dean’s brown leather jacket, Sam’s green jacket, Sam’s suit jacket, Dean’s suit jacket. All filed away in order._

_“Dean?” Sam’s voice filters through the wall, quiet and shaking, barely audible. “Dean, can you hear me, man? It’s been days.” The voice grows louder, as if Sam is pressed up right against the wall to the side of the coat closet. He’s desperate, his voice straining._

_“Dean,” he draws out, almost a whine. Something hits the wall, a bang to the right of the coat closet. The noise rattles around the room, the camera shaking._

_“Dean, Cas, Bobby?” he asks, his voice almost cracking as he searches with his voice. Nothing in the room moves._

_“Please. Please. Please, let me out.” He’s shuddering, his breathing uneven as it comes through the wall, like he’s cold, shivering._

_“The fucking House. This fucking House,” he hisses, still shivering behind the wall. “Come on, please. Please, let me out.” Sam pleads with both his brother and the House. His voice nearly breaks and it’s obvious that he’s desperate and terrified._

_“Please?”_

_There’s a pause as Sam breathes._

_“Come on, Dean, I know you can hear me.” His voice still shakes as he talks, his breathing loud against the silence that is present in all other corners of the room. Sam hits the wall with his fist and the photograph of the owners rattles behind the camera. The camera shakes, the picture distorting slightly as the colors invert._

_Sam pounds against the wall again after a second, louder this time. The coats in the closet shake with the effort, Castiel’s trench coat falling from its hanger. It lands in a crumpled heap beneath Dean’s green coat. The camera falls as well, hitting the carpet and knocking the colors back to the correct setting. The foot of the closet is visible, Castiel’s trench coat all that can be seen in the closet._

_“Please, Dean._

_“Please?” He hits the wall again, softer, more timid._

_“I know you’re there. I know you can hear me! You won’t admit it, but you’re there!” he accuses, his voice rising, loud even though there’s a wall between him and the camera. He hits the wall and the image on the camera cuts out._

_Sam is still shivering, his breathing audible and loud._

_“Dean? Cas? Bobby? Anyone? Please. Please?” Sam’s voice is loud, louder than it’s been, as if he’s finally broken through the wall, but his voice is still shaking and desperate._

_The image returns, the camera righted. Dean is standing to the right of the closet with his back facing the camera. He stares at the wall where Sam’s voice is originating._

_“Please, let me out.”_

_Dean’s shoulder hits the wall as his knees give out. He doesn’t say anything. His face is stricken, his eyes screwed shut with his jaw clenched tight so no sound can escape. He has to listen to Sam._

_“Let me out, please.”_

_Dean slides down the wall with his head in his hands._

_“Please.”_

_Dean slams his head back against the wall. He stares at the ceiling._

_“Please.”_

_Dean sits against the wall for two hours, staring at the ceiling. Castiel enters the image and wordlessly offers Dean his hand. Dean moves for the first time, looking at the hand. After a few seconds of silence, he takes it and Castiel guides him out of the picture._

_The coat closet sits in the center of the picture, eight coats hanging up. Castiel’s suit jacket, Dean’s green coat, Sam’s tan jacket, Bobby’s blue jacket still covered in dirt, Dean’s brown leather jacket, Sam’s green jacket, Sam’s suit jacket, Dean’s suit jacket. All filed away in order._

_Castiel’s coat lies forgotten on the floor._

* * *

“Sam!”

Bobby is the one who finds Sam. It’s been three days since they last saw him.

He’s sitting in the back of the coat closet, so cold that his fingers can’t even grip at Dean’s when they try to haul him out. He’s cold and he can barely see with the light of the sun streaming in through the glass doors in the hallway. It’s too bright and he’s too cold and the skin beneath his eyes is bruised because he hasn’t slept in days.

He’s covered in scratches. Claw marks that rake across one cheek and up his arms and through his shirt. He’s been attacked by something that won’t let go of him and it’s still snarling through the walls and the house does nothing to stop it.

Cas tries to heal him again and nothing happens. He leaves and doesn’t come back and Dean knows he should chase him, but he can’t and Cas has known his Grace wouldn’t work and he needs to work through this and Dean hates this. He hates being put in a position of deciding whether Sam’s health or Cas’s failing Grace is more important and he can’t help but choose because at least Cas is alive and is still alive, but Sam could be dying for all he knows.

Sam stumbles when Dean pulls him out and Bobby wraps a blanket around him and he grips at Dean’s shirt for the first few minutes, trying to regain control over his mouth. It comes out quietly and so hoarse that Dean is sure that Sam coughed up blood trying to speak.

“That thing is still in there, Dean.”

Dean doesn’t disagree.

* * *

“I should be able to heal him!” Dean sits down by Cas outside, along the row of flowers he’s created. The crocus’s are beginning to wilt, anemone coming in nicely to take their place. “I should be able to do something, but I can’t.” Cas glares down at his hands, naming them useless. He clenches them into fists and has to look away.

Dean gently pulls Cas to him.

“It’s okay, Cas,” Dean gently reassures, pressing a kiss to his temple. Cas looks away again, resisting.

“I don’t like it here anymore, Dean,” he admits lowly and Dean can feel himself clench up a bit, but he’s known it was coming because Cas is still an angel and this house is forcing him to be human. “I want my Grace back and I want Sam back and I want you back. The house isn’t just messing with me, it’s messing with all of us. You were so driven on finding Sam, you were killing yourself. You weren’t Dean anymore. We need to leave.” He looks at Dean imploringly and Dean finds himself choking under Cas’s gaze.

It should be a simple answer. Yes. Dean should leave because Cas is asking him to and because there truly is something wrong with this house, but he can’t.

“Give me a day to think, Cas,” is what finally comes out because he needs to buy more time to think even though he knows the answer that he’ll have to leave in the end. This house is too far gone and he’s stuck in the middle of it and he can’t drag Sam and Cas down with him, even if he is attached.

“I understand. This is still home,” Cas reassures because he had known that Dean would have a hard time with this. Apparently Winchesters are not meant to settle long.

Dean slings an arm around Cas and thanks God that he’s in love with an angel.

* * *

“What do you mean you’re leaving?!” Dean shouts as Sam walks out through the front door. Sam has his duffel filled with clothes and books and a thing of Dean’s leftovers and his laptop is under his arm and Bobby is outside with his beat up old Mustang missing half its paint. And Sam is leaving and Dean isn’t.

“This is beyond hunting, Dean! I won’t sleep here!” Sam shouts, fumbling as he almost drops his laptop. Dean doesn’t move from his position in the front door, watching his brother. Sam manages to snag his computer before it hits the concrete and stands back up to look at his brother with as much dignity as he can manage, even if he is running away from the house and he is still shaking because the chill in his bones won’t leave.

"It's just a house, Sam!" Dean is imploring, begging Sam to come back, but he knows that Sam is too far gone and that he’s not coming back. And really, he can’t blame him.

"It not just a house!” Sam hisses and his eyes turn back to the house and where it lies. He shivers like the shadows are breathing upon him, like whatever stalked him within the walls will follow him to wherever it is he’s going. “There is something wrong with this House, Dean. It’s not witches.” He shakes his head, his eyes darkening with the prospect. The ice hasn’t fully left him and he can’t fully leave the idea that the house has caused it somehow.

Dean stares at him wordlessly. “This House is a living thing, Dean, and it’s hell bent on us for some reason. I’m getting out of here. You should too." Sam steps away from the house nervously, looking up at its looming form. To Sam, it’s not home anymore. It’s dangerous and something to be hunted or more likely, avoided.

“Stay safe, Sam,” Dean calls from the porch. He’s torn, unwilling to let Sam leave, but less willing to leave the house when Cas at least is still inside. This is his home and he knows that something is wrong with it, but it’s still his home and he can’t just give that up as fast as Sam who’s never known what it like to have one.

But he has to leave eventually. He knows. He just hates it.

“You’re the ones who are gonna need that blessing,” Sam bites back, turning his eyes away.”

Sam stands there for a second. “Dean, I’m at the motel with Bobby. I’m not far and I’ll call at night,” he explains, trying to rationalize everything because that’s all he has left to cling to and the house is taking it away every time it swallows him whole. He needs to leave if only for his own sanity. “I’ll come back to get more of my research and my books, but…”

“But you can’t stay here. I get it, man. Do what you’ve gotta do.” Dean nods, trying not to let himself feel like this is a personal punch to the gut. His brother is no longer safe here and he has to recognize this and maybe he’s right. He is right. Dean catches Bobby’s eye through his car window. “You take care of my brother, you hear?”

“Loud and clear, princess.”

Sam gets in Bobby’s car and closes the door loudly.

* * *

Cas and Dean eat dinner alone in the kitchen. Dean orders pizza and the delivery guy shows up five minutes after he’s supposed to but Dean is so tired he doesn’t care and tells him to keep the change.

“How long do you want to stay?” Cas asks him across the table and only now does Dean notice the dark circles that have taken up residence beneath his eyes. Castiel is hunched over the table, looking up at him. He’s tired and he doesn’t have the strength to hold himself upright anymore. Castiel is as ready to fall over as Dean is, and Dean’s not sure whether he’ll be able to catch him or not.

“I don’t know.” Dean stares at his hands and doesn’t want to think about tomorrow, doesn’t want to think about how Sam has spent days at the mercy of the house, banging around in search of an exit. This is too much. He can’t do it. Dean has abandoned his food, not even bothering to appear to eat. Facades are too hard at the moment.

“You know we should leave,” Cas gently reminds because it’s not hard to see that Dean is close to snapping. Dean is being held together by the threadbare Grace that Cas sewed him together with when lifting him from Hell and that’s it. Sam is gone and Castiel is tired and everything is falling apart around him and Dean is unraveling slowly.

“I know.” It comes out as more of a sigh and he puts his head in his hands.

“But you like it here,” the angel concludes, tilting his head slightly. He feels just as lost as he did in the early days. The house, it’s devoured Sam, and the paint is apparently cheap and they don’t even have any pictures up, but apparently it’s that important to Dean and sometimes he understands and sometimes it just slips away.

“It’s home, Cas. It’s the closest thing I’ve ever had to home. I missed this.” Dean lets one of his hands fall to the table. He lets it rest there, lets it soak in the coolness of the wood and the rest of the house, even if the rest of the house is trying to kill them.

“I’ll stay with you.”

Dean nods, turning his head away. He bites his lower lips, shooting a glance around the kitchen. It’s not his kitchen anymore. It never really was. It was always the house’s. “Just give me a couple days to get my stuff together and then we’ll leave.”

“All right then.” 

* * *

They’re packing when Dean first notices it. Cas is slumped over the table, with his head pillowed on the crook of his elbow.

“Cas?” he calls, but he doesn’t get an answer.

Cas is sleeping.

Dean has never been more terrified.

* * *

_Dean paces before the coat closet, staring at it. He’s in only a grey t-shirt and jeans, almost naked in comparison to how many layers he usually wears. He grips the door frame, leaning into the closet as he stares into the darkness. “What are you? Nothing has power over an angel like that. What are you?” It comes out low, so low that it’s barely audible, the audio cutting out at the last second._

_Nothing moves._

_“Come on, I know you’re something,” he goads, taking a step further into the closet, as if taunting it, taunting whatever has the House. “Nothing natural has this much power over an angel. You’re something,” he threatens, head moving as he peers around the depths of the closet. ”Witch? Ghost? Tulpa? Trickster? Demon? Come on, Crowley, is this you?” His breath shakes, his hand trembling against the frame of the door. “The joke’s over. Just stop and let me and Cas have our fucking lives back!”_

_Dean stands there, the muscles in his back tensing up all at once. He listens, but there’s nothing but silence for a few seconds which means that Cas is still sleeping. Dean grips the door frame tighter, his knuckles almost white. The image tears for a second, Dean and the closet disappearing in blackness._

_“Is that it? Too scared to say anything?” The image returns, Dean standing in the doorway with his hands at his sides. “You wanna take me? Is that what you want, you fucking House? You want me?” Dean takes a step back, throwing his arms open wide._

_“Well, why is it always me?! I was the good son! I sold my soul! I went to Hell! I was Michael’s fucking vessel! I did everything! Why is it always me?!” His voice rings through the House, loud and accusing and angry and the House screams right back, matching his words and his cadence. He doesn’t seem to hear._

_His voice drops as the tension drains from his shoulders. His arms drop to his side. There are no sounds from the other room where Castiel sleeps._

_“Can’t I have this one thing?”_

_Dean stares at the closet for a few seconds before he steps in, dropping his hands._

_“You take me and you leave them out of this. You hear me?” He slams a hand against the wall of the closet, practically growling out the words. “I will stand in this closet for as long as I need to, but you take me and you leave them.”_

_The House doesn’t respond._

_“Too scared now?” He accuses even as he takes a step back, shivering even as he tries to maintain bravado. “Too scared when I’m standing right here?”_

_The camera shakes slightly, the picture jarring back and forth._

_“You take me, you take me, you take me.” Dean steps back again as his voice echoes throughout the room, throughout the entirety of the House, blasting from every single corner it can find. “And you leave them.” The final words come as if right next to his ear, the House whispering to him secretly._

_“What are you?”_

* * *

“Dean?”

“Get over here, we’re burning the House down.”

“Okay.”

* * *

“So how are you gonna do this?” Bobby asks as he reclines at the kitchen table. He’s got a beer in his hand, ignoring the food in front of him in favor of thinking strategy. He looks frightfully at ease in comparison to Sam, his fingers twitching against the table, ticking in a countdown to some internal explosion that he has planned out for later. He’s trying to keep himself intact but he’s shattering on the premises.

“Propane. We’ll blow it so that it’s impossible for anyone to live here again. We can’t risk it,” Dean explains, picking at his food. It’s unappetizing even if he’s made it. The house has been messing with the ingredients and the damn blue paint on his hands flecked onto it so it’s not even proper food. It’s disgusting and the damn house has its claws in it.

"Since you idjits have no plan on how to get away with this big of arson without getting caught, let me help," Bobby drawls, setting down his beer. “And don’t you have any whiskey around here?”

"Not the rotgut crap you drink.” Dean scoffs and maybe it comes out a bit too much like Ellen or Rufus because the memory feels sour and the joke falls a bit too flat. “And it's easy, Bobby. We'll torch the place and run. Not like we haven't done it before." Dean shrugs unapologetically. He just wants to leave at this point because he’s fairly sure that the kitchen has grown by at least a couple feet but he can’t find the courage to measure it and prove himself wrong.

"But people know you now,” Bobby reminds, pointing an accusing finger at Dean. “They'll wonder what happened to you. It’s not so simple as running anymore."

"So?" Sam asks between gritted teeth, gripping at his knees.

"You can't just torch the house without giving it any thought. You have to make it look like an accident, faulty wiring or something. Don’t give people something to look for." Dean can’t stop thinking about their house. A nightlight had shorted out and the entire nursery had caught on fire. There had been nothing to look for. It was a ‘mistake.’

Looks like two of their homes will go down in flames now.

"We can do that." Dean nods to himself and he can feel the house’s eyes on him and everything they plan can be heard and they shouldn’t have done this here, but they’re almost gone. It’s almost over.

"All right, finish your food and get your stuff. We'll light her up tonight."

"Where will we go?" Cas asks, staring at them. It’s the first time he’s spoken throughout the discussion and that doesn’t escape Dean’s notice. Cas is nodding off right then and there at the table and he’s going to fall asleep and angels aren’t meant to fall asleep, but he has somehow. They can’t. So what the fuck is the house doing?

"Move in with me for a bit.” Bobby shrugs, tossing back the rest of his beer. “I do need a few more hands around the house now that Rufus has taken off. And my house sure ain’t haunted." He sets the bottle down on the table and looks up. The boys are staring at him and they can’t really speak well, a bit choked up.

"Bobby-"

The house groans and they all stop.

It starts to Dean’s immediate left. The floor is receding, opening up to black inky depths. The floor is receding and the walls are moving closer and the house is exhaling and its deflating lungs will crush them all. They’re going to die if this stay in this coffin kitchen and they’ll be eaten alive by the house.

“Through the window!” Dean shouts. Sam is scrambling onto the kitchen counter in an instant, smashing through the window with his elbow despite the fact his skin is bare and it cuts into him. He pitches through the shards into the flowers Cas had so painstakingly grown.

The rhododendrons don’t matter anymore.

They’re the house’s flowers now. Screw them.

Dean climbs onto the counter, helping Bobby get up. He shoves the hunter backwards and sends him crashing through the window into the flowerbed beside Sam. He’s safe and Sam’s safe. Dean turns back to the gaping maw of the house and reaches for Cas. The angel is moving towards him, arm outstretched. Dean is shouting over the screams of the house as it creaks and makes way for the hollow infinity within it. Chairs are falling down into the abyss and Dean is reaching for Cas. Always reaching.

“Come on, Cas!”

The floor is gone. Sam and Bobby are holding the back of Dean’s shirt and yanking him through the window. The counter is gone. The kitchen is gone. The kitchen table is gone. The chairs are gone. The floor is blackness and emptiness and the entire house is shuddering. The entire house shudders and swallows.

And Cas is gone.

“Cas!”

Dean fights against the arms that pull him backwards, reaching for the window so he can yank himself back in after the angel that has fallen fallen fallen into the depths of Hell because the house is so obviously something out of Dante’s imagination.

“Dean!” Sam shouts, grabbing an arm. Dean elbows him, pulling his arm free. Sam stumbles backwards, clutching at his stomach as he tries to remember how to breathe. Bobby punches Dean in the face and he goes down hard to his knees. His nose is bleeding and his entire face hurts but it’s nothing compared to the ache knowing that Cas is gone in the house. Gone. And the coat closet door will be closed. And Cas will be trapped inside and they’ll find his body and that’s all that will be left. Because the house will just spit out the bones after it’s finished eating.

Sam has to wrestle him down, pin him to the ground while the house settles down and stops screaming and the floor reappears with the rest of the kitchen. But with no Cas.

Dean becomes very aware that he’s crying and shouting and that Cas is gone. His face is pressed into the grass and he’s still bleeding and he is still crying and he is alone.

“No. No no no no no. No.” He can’t stop. “No. No no no no no. No.”

Cas is gone and the House has taken him.

* * *

Dean sits in the motel room and doesn’t move.

“Dean, are you listening to me?”

“Yeah,” he responds numbly because he can still feel the breath of the House on the back of his neck and now it’s swallowed Cas whole and he’s stuck in this fucking motel while Cas could be dying, probably is dying. This isn’t right and Bobby and Sam know it but they won’t let him leave so all he can do is sit here while the House plucks Cas’s wings one by one and steals his Grace and devours him whole. Of course it’s the House that’s doing it. It’s always been the House and it wants something. It wouldn’t just take Cas for no reason. It wouldn’t. And if it had wanted Cas, it could have taken him so many other times. There has to be some reason. The House is using Cas for something.

“Dean!” Dean snaps back to attention when Sam shouts. He looks up to see Bobby and Sam both staring at him. He shakes his head, clearing it of Cas and whispers of conversations and the House.

“What?”

“We’re going to burn down the House,” Bobby explains, gesturing to the gasoline that most likely rests in the car and they’re going to burn down the House, but Cas is in there, dying behind the walls and if they burn down the House then Cas… Could Cas die from that? Could Cas die now? Could Cas already be dead?

“What?!” Dean sits up straighter and his head is clear of everything except the House burning down.

“We don’t have any other options,” Sam tries to rationalize, pleading with his hands and his eyes and his words and Dean can’t hear anything other than that they’re burning the House down and that Cas is still stuck inside. And they’re burning it down.

“But Cas is in there!”

“I know…” Sam hesitates, swallowing nervously as he tries to choose his words. Bobby sits down next to Dean, putting a hand on his shoulder as if that’s supposed to help. “He’s family to me too, Dean. I owe him just as much as you, but we don’t know how to get him out. And going back in there could be even worse. He would want us to.”

“So you suggest we leave him there to die!” Dean stands up, moving into Sam’s personal space in a violent way that distorts everything Cas ever stood for. Sam backs up until he hits the bed with the back of his knees and Bobby puts a restraining hand on Dean’s arm. Dean is shouting, uncaring of whether people can overhear because Cas is all that’s left and now he might be gone and they’re going to burn the House down around him. “After everything we’ve been through?! You would leave him to die?!”

“Then how do we get him out?!” Sam shouts right back, stepping back up.

“Look, we can do more research, Dean, but there’s going to be no answer on how to get him back. That’s it.” Bobby pushes Dean backwards, putting another hand to steady Sam’s charge. It’s all he can do to keep the two apart.

Dean can feel the House breathing down his neck, inhaling his scent from where it lives on the angel. It’s trying them all out, tasting each flavor of madness it can find, and for now Castiel is its chosen food. It’s ripping them apart one by one, destroying what keeps them anchored to earth and to sanity. Sam loses his rationality. Cas loses his Grace. Dean loses Sam and then loses Cas and now he’s losing his mind.

Dean sits back down.

* * *

“You got what you wanted!” Dean shouts, smashing another bottle against the kitchen counter. “I’m back! You have me! You can have me, you fucked up House! Just give Cas back! Give him back!”

The House doesn’t respond. It laughs in its silence, throws Castiel’s eyes back in the color of the paint.

_We’ll paint them blue for your eyes, Cas. Blue for your eyes, Cas. Blue for your eyes._

Those eyes belong to the House now and Dean is losing his fucking mind standing here in the House where he’s surrounded by Castiel. The House won’t stop watching him and Cas is stuck somewhere inside and he can feel the wet breath of whatever has been creeping through the walls. It’s in the kitchen with him and the shadows are twisting around him.

Dean hisses lowly as he feels the glass in his hand for the first time. He’s bleeding and his hands are still coated in the cheap blue paint and there’s still glass in his palm and the damn blue walls won’t stop staring at him like they’re Castiel. But maybe they are. Maybe the House has gone and made Castiel’s eyes the color of the walls to mock him. Maybe he’ll find the walls upstairs tan like the trench coat.

But…hadn’t the paint been white?

Ugly militant white that made Dean’s skin crawl and his feet itch to leave. The paint had been white. They’d never painted the House. They’d never changed it. The walls aren’t blue.

The walls aren’t blue and Dean is losing his mind.

The walls aren’t

Blue like Castiel’s

Eyes.

The walls are white. Ugly militant white and Dean had lost the bickering with Sam and they ended up not painting and the walls are white.

The entire House moves towards him all at once, heaving itself into motion to attack him. The shadows flux as whatever breathes down his neck snarls in his ear and growls so low that Dean can’t be quite sure that it’s not him growling right back. And then it bites down on his jugular and the pain is tearing through him faster than Cas’s death. He’s bleeding out from his throat and whatever has been stalking Sam has taken and murdered him at last. The walls seem to crash together as they move forward, swarming through the kitchen and the furniture. They’re sweeping up everything, crashing through the table and the chairs and the everything. The space is getting smaller and the House is cannibalizing and destroying itself to get to Dean and the walls are blue. It’s so loud and Dean stands there.

But nothing has moved and Dean is standing there and it’s utterly silent and the walls still match Cas’s eyes and the House still has Cas and the timbers scream with Cas’s voice. Except the walls are white.

The

Walls

Aren’t

Blue.

Dean can feel the anger settling within his stomach, the shouting building in his lungs. This can’t be it. The House can’t just sit there! It can’t just sit there!

The shattered glass of three smashed bottles of whiskey lay around Dean in a target, but even the blood dripping from his hands and the glass embedded in his palm won’t summon whatever it is haunting the House. Dean is alone and he’s going insane.

“Come on!”

The silence laughs harder as the air presses in against him. He can feel it. The House wants to swallow him whole, to take him like it’s taken Sam and Cas and everyone else who’s ever lived here. It wants him even if it won’t say so. It wants him and wants to paint the walls and the lawn green like his eyes. It wants to put Dean’s callouses on the feet of the table so it won’t scuff the floor. It wants Dean’s scars for where the animals have scratched it. It wants the handprint on Dean’s shoulder for a doorknocker.

The House wants him. Every inch of him.

Perhaps it makes him egotistical, but he knows it.

The shadows creep up his shoulders and they feel like Castiel’s hands and the House beckons him home because there’s nothing left for him if Castiel is here. Sam doesn’t need him now. Bobby will make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid. And maybe for once Dean wants to be a little selfish.

Dean goes to the coat closet.

His hands and his arms are covered in blue paint and he’s nowhere near a sink to wash it all off and he doesn’t care anymore. He pushes through the jackets, finds Castiel’s trench coat, and holds it close, inhales the scent of the angel and all that he is.

The walls there are blue too.

* * *

Cas stumbles out onto the lawn as Sam and Bobby drive up. He lists to one side, off balance. He nearly falls off the porch, feet moving faster than he can think, the world bright and blurry in comparison to the stark blackness that consists of the walls in the House. Everything is blinding and he can’t see where he’s going.

“Where is Dean?!” he shouts, clawing at the air as he reaches for Sam. His voice is hoarse and his hands are shaking uncontrollably and he is not the angel Sam is familiar with. Bobby grabs the blanket he has next to him and wraps it around Cas’s shoulders, unable to spare him half a thought as he stares at the House.

He catches the angel, holding him still. Cas is still moving forward, unable to process that they’ve stopped and these are Bobby’s hands and they aren’t Dean’s and where is Dean?

“He’s here somewhere,” Sam says, looking around for any sign of his brother. There’s nothing to indicate he’s there except for the Impala parked in the driveway. The windows in the House are dark, perhaps tinted a bit greener than he remembers, but nothing else has changed. All the lights are off like no one is home anymore.

“He’s in the House?! You let him come back?!” Cas shouts, desperate as he grabs at Bobby’s shirt but the fabric is falling through his fingers and he can barely stand up straight. “No! How could you do that?!”

“Cas, he snuck out.” It sounds like Dean is the normal stupid teenager he always wanted to be and that he snuck out of the House to go have sex and that this isn’t a big deal because Dean will be right back and he’ll get grounded and nothing else matters because it sounds like Dean will be okay and that is the biggest fucking lie Cas has ever heard.

“What?” Cas can’t think and he can’t believe what he’s hearing and this is all too much. Dean is gone. Dean is gone. And Cas is being left behind to pick up the pieces that remain of the days spent in Hell. And the House has taken Dean.

“He went looking for you!” Sam shouts and the House rattles behind him like bones.

“No!”

* * *

The coat closet’s door is closed.

“No!” Cas screams, the windows behind him shattering in a rain of class. He’s still an angel, still divine, even if he sleeps in this House, even if he can’t save Dean. Even if he can’t save Dean. And if he can’t save Dean, then he’s worthless as an angel. He knows it. The House has Dean and he has to find Dean and how could Dean do this to him?!

Something screams within the House.

Cas tears at the door, yanking at the handle with everything he has. It doesn’t turn. “Open up!” He throws his shoulder against it, but the door is strong enough to resist. The House won’t give up Dean that easily.

“Dean!” Cas shouts again, ramming into the door again and again. It shakes and the House creaks around him in protest and warning, but it’s strong. He beats and the door with his bare fists, skin splitting as he tries to tear down the door. He’s losing the skin on his knuckles and everything is slipping away. “Dean!”

He puts his back to the door, flexing what’s left of his wings against the grain of the wood. “Let me in! Let me in!” he shouts, pushing against the door. And all he can feel is his wings straining to get away from the wood, drawing back from the ancient thing, this House. They won’t touch it. This House is too old and dangerous and angry. His Grace knows that he shouldn’t touch it. But Castiel moves away quickly, looking for something, anything to help break through.

“Cas! We’ll figure this out!” Bobby shouts, but the angel charges through his arms. He moves for the axe that Dean always breaks down the walls with, searches for Sam with. The House won’t stand up to the axe. Dean has broken through so many walls with it; surely it can break through the coat closet door. Surely it can take him to Dean. Surely it can.  

Surely surely surely.

It’s sitting on the kitchen table as if the House is daring him to step back in and get sucked up again. Cas hesitates at the door, his nature getting the best of him. He’s scared out of his mind because he can’t fly in this House and the floor will eat him again, but the axe is right there and every second stalling is another second that Dean could die. And Dean could die.

Sam grabs it before Cas can say anything and runs back to the hallway and his hands won’t stop shaking now. None of them are stepping foot in the kitchen ever again. Sam’s nervously looking around as he holds it out to the angel.

“Come on, Dean. Where are you?!” he shouts, looking around and there’s no answer except the screaming of the House.

Cas grabs the axe from Sam’s hand, moving past Bobby. Bobby has picked up the video camera on the ground. It’s still recording.

The axe bites into the wood and the House is screaming, agonizing because Cas is cutting out it’s very heart. The walls push forward and Sam is pushed forward towards the door towards the door.

“No!” he shouts, splaying his hands backwards against the wall. Hands from the wall grip at his wrists, and they feel like Dean. Dean’s hands reach through the wall and Sam can’t tell whether they’re reaching for Sam to pull Dean out or to pull Sam back through, back into the space between the walls where Dean is dying. Bobby runs to help him, to keep the wall back, to keep Dean’s hands away because the House has Dean now.

And they don’t know what to do because if they stay then Dean will pull them back into the House, but if they leave, the walls will crush Cas and either way they’re going to die. But they can’t stop bracing against the wall because this is the only thing they can think to do. Everything else is lost as the House consumes it.

The wall pulls back and the House settles and nothing has moved and both Bobby and Sam are bracing against the very air unsure of whether there had ever been a wall to begin with.

Cas hacks away at the door, shouting and screaming and cursing at the House. “Dean! Dean!” The wood finally breaks down beneath the blade. Cas tears the entire door down.

Dean’s jacket is hung up in the center.

The rest of the closet is empty.

Cas screams and every single window in the House blows out and he doesn’t stop because the door is gone and he can’t shut himself in now and the House won’t take him back to Dean. And Dean is gone. Gone gone gone within the House. Sam’s arms are around him, dragging him from the House. And something is screaming in the House and it has to be Dean because he’s blown out the windows and the House is taking it out on Dean or maybe Dean is screaming for Cas and they’ll never know because the House has taken that too and Dean is screaming.

Cas can feel himself struggling, fighting to get back to Dean and the House. But his mind is floating and his movements are disjointed and uncoordinated. He’s lost everything. “Give him back. Give him back. Please! Dean!”

But no matter what, if he ever manages to get back to the House, it won’t respond anymore. It’ll lie still and dormant and the kitchen won’t swallow him up and the coat closet will be empty.

And the too-green windows of Dean’s eyes will be forever gone. 

* * *

_The camera has a close up on Dean’s face. His eyes are bloodshot from nights of constant research and drinking and crying. There are dark circles painted on underneath his eyes, his face gaunt and hollow. He tries to smile somewhat, looking around, taking in everything behind the camera, the old chipping paint along the hallway. He can’t look directly at the camera._

_“Sam, I’m going in,” he starts, looking back towards where the coat closet is. He swallows nervously, looking around for a second like he’s waiting for something. For someone. For Bobby or Sam to run in and stop him. For Cas. “I’m going to find Cas. This House is fucked up, man. I don’t know what’s going on here anymore. You were right, we should have left. We should have left! But Cas is stuck inside here somewhere and I have to find him. I have to. I’m sorry, Sam. I’m stupid and reckless most of the time. I’m pretty out of it at the moment too. And I know this takes the cake,”_

_The lighting changes, the shadows distorting and climbing across Dean’s face as he continues talking. He doesn’t notice, eyes shifting to the left. The audio tears for a second, the video going back a few seconds to loop over and over again._

_“out of it at the moment out of it at the moment out of it at the moment out of it at the moment out of it at the moment too. And I know this takes the cake, but this House is messing with my head and I can’t think straight anymore. I’ve got to go with my instinct. This House is alive, Sam.” Dean’s eyes are massive, pupils blown and he’s looking everywhere and he’s terrified and he give a nervous laugh. “You were right. This isn’t just a house. This House is alive and it’s something that I don’t know how to hunt so I have to try and save Cas. I have to. I can’t just let him die here. I have to try.”_

_His voice lowers for a second and his head shifts to a different direction. He swallows again, head flicking a different direction. “It knows, Sam. The House knows what I’m doing. It keeps painting the walls blue like Cas’s eyes and I know they’re supposed to be white, but they’re blue and I remember us painting them. This House is making me go crazy, Sam!”_

_There’s a crash and Dean looks up suddenly. He doesn’t flip the camera around, letting it continue on his face._

_He stands still for a second, eyes and head moving about every which way. The silence draws out for a few seconds. He’s shaking, breath coming a little faster. The picture shakes with the camera and Dean still won’t look at the lens._

_“It’s angry.” Dean swallows nervously as his eyes flicker to another part of what remains behind the camera. “The House is angry. It wants me for some reason and it knows I’m gonna try to get out. It’s angry, Sam. It keeps painting the walls blue and it took you and it took Cas so I won’t leave and look!” Dean angles the camera towards the wall opposite the closet. “Look, Sam. It’s even got his picture up!” A photo comes into focus, the Impala in the driveway. Dean is sitting on it with a beer. It’s from the early days and Dean is laughing because they’ve just bought the House and they have a home and the House hasn’t taken Sam yet. “The House has got a picture of Cas! Sleeping! What the fuck, Sam?! It’s got a picture of him! I can’t just leave him in here when this House is fucking us all up. I can’t!”_

_Dean pauses, closing his eyes for a second as he gathers his nerves. He breathes deeply, finally opening his eyes after a few seconds. He’s visibly calmer, but the picture shakes a bit as his hands shake._

_“If I don’t make it out, tell Cas I’m sorry. Tell him I’m sorry I fucked up and that he might be dead and that I told him it would be okay the first time we heard you banging on the walls. It wasn’t okay. Nothing is okay. Nothing will ever be okay.” Dean stops for a second, his voice stuck in his throat. The lighting shifts back to normal and Dean is still standing there in the hallway. He tries to smile again. The attempt is even worse than the last. He swallows down the smile along with the rest of his words._

_“I mean he’s down there and I’m not and that’s…not okay. I’m sorry. I… I can’t believe I’m using this bullshit excuse, but I love him, Sam. This is something I would do for you, something I would do for Bobby, something I would have done for Dad. I have to try to save him. I love him. I love you. I’m sorry, Cas. I love you and I’m so sorry.” Dean wipes his eyes, looking directly at the camera for the first time._

_He’s terrified and the picture won’t stop shaking._

_The shadows creep around his neck and Dean exhales loudly as he tries to calm himself. But the shadows keep tightening and it looks like Dean’s bleeding, but he doesn’t even notice. He looks over his shoulder one more time, looking back into the camera._

_“I’m sorry.”_

_Dean sets the camera down on the ground so that all that’s visible are his feet._

_Dean walks into the coat closet and closes the door behind him._

_The walls are white._

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! And if you're interested, come over and visit me at landofrunawayangels.tumblr.com. There's a couple of voice recordings I did while conceiving scenes and I'm always more than happy to talk.


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